What Happened Next?
by onebyone
Summary: Basically what happened after Not Fade Away. All your favourite characters are back, well most of them. Please Read and Review.
1. Chapter 1

CHAPTER ONE

Wesley could hear his heart rate slowing down. Time seemed to stretch on endlessly, making each beat seem a mile apart, it couldn't have been more than a minute since Illyria had left him and he had lost the strength to even keep his eyes open but it seemed like an hour at least.

Wesley had visited that place between life and death far more frequently than the average human being. He had been blown up, shot, stabbed and most memorably had his throat slit and each time he had wondered at that dark space he inhabited where he saw all the moments of his life at once, feeling every emotion he had ever encountered, seeing a million ways his life could have changed so as not to lead him here. With every moment passing he felt more detached from the world as if he were floating away like a giant hot air balloon. Up into the blue, blue Californian summer sky…

_Wesley._

He gasped in pain as electric sparks soared through every muscle and tendon and nerve ending in his body. He could literally feel the cells in his stomach, knitting together, closing the wound. Every muscle jerked as his heart suddenly sped up; pumping blood around his oxygen starved body as if he had just been running the New York Marathon. Finally he felt a thread of magical electricity snake into his brain, latching on and literally pulling his subconscious back into his repaired body. He almost imagined he felt a thump as if his mind had hit the back of his skull.

Wesley slowly opened his eyes, almost tentatively only to look into the face of his rescuer. He had no idea who she was, which was a surprise. He didn't know what he had been expecting or if he had even had time to think about it, but she was definitely not it. Long, straight dark hair framing a round, heart shaped face; average sized brown eyes, lips that almost pouted a figure somewhere between slender and curvaceous. Aged in her twenties dressed in a calf-length, brown leather jacket, jeans, boots, and plain red sweater. Nothing remarkable about her at all, apart from the fact that a broadsword hung from her belt and that she was doubled up in pain.

Wesley sat up, cautiously but when he felt no pain he edged closer towards her. 'Are you alright?'

She looked up and nodded, half smiling. 'Yeah. It just takes it out of you, you know?'

'No,' Wesley answered, parting the material of his torn sweater and run his hand over the now smooth skin of his abdomen. The wound had completely healed over with no sign of a scar. 'But I think I can imagine what a massive healing like that would do to you.'

She sat up on her knees. 'Give me a minute and I'll be fine. Then we can get on with it.'

'Get on with what?' Wesley frowned. 'And do you mind if I ask you who you are and whose side you're on?'

She took a deep breath and smiled briefly. 'Sorry, I'm kinda new to this whole cosmic power thing. I'm Rebecca and don't worry I work for the Powers that Be. I'm here to sort this all out.'

'Where are my friends?'

'Oh, yeah. We're just going to go find them,' she said as she began to get to her feet unsteadily. 'Angel really messed up this time. You all followed him like little lemmings.'

Wesley caught her elbow to help her up. 'Not that I'm not offend by that last lemmings reference but should you really be moving around after…?'

'No, no. I'm fine. Cosmic being,' Rebecca waved him off. 'Now, do you mind holding my hand?'

'What?'

'Oh, grow up.'

And she grabbed his hand everything around him started to dissolve.

Wesley wasn't really aware of what happened in those next few seconds. He had a vague feeling of nausea not unsimilar to the feeling you get when a roller coaster tips you upside down but it quickly passed and in the brief moment when he closed his eyes, everything had changed.

The first thing he was conscious of was the rain. It pounded against the windows like it was summer monsoon season. He felt Rebecca's warm hand pull a way from his and he looked around. He saw marble floors; the tarnished wood counter, the rounded sofa.

'I know where we are.'

It was the Hyperion Hotel, looking, remarkably like nothing had changed since Angel Investigations had left it a year since. Someone had obviously been dusting, run a vacuum around the place; if anything it was cleaner then when he had last stood here.

'Well, I should hope so.' Rebecca wondered towards the counter and ran her fingers over the wooden surface. The colour seemed to have all drained from her face and she was a little unsteady on her feet but other than that she looked fine. Well, as fine as you can expect after performing two major magical operations in quick succession. 'That spell wasn't meant to do anything to your memory.'

'I thought you were going to take me to my friends?' Wesley demanded anger creeping into his tone.

Rebecca sighed. 'They're in the alley outside the Hotel. Charles has ten minutes left to live and Angel's more concerned with slaying a dragon. If we play our cards right we can beat him to it.'

'Did you just say dragon?' Wes asked incredulously.

'Big, scaly reptile thing with a wingspan of about twenty metres. Yeah, I'd say that qualifies as a dragon.'

'How can…?'

Rebecca sighed; frustrated with his inability to grasp the situation at hand, something Wesley thought was perfectly acceptable for someone recently pulled from the brink of death by a stranger. She started making for the door and the appalling weather outside. Wesley followed blindly. 'Did you not listen to what I just said at all? They're outside in the alley behind the Hotel. And by Hotel I meant this one.'

Wesley dashed out after her and was instantly soaked by the torrential rain. At least the weather suited the occasion for once. Apocalyptic weather for the Armageddon. Rebecca grabbed his hand again and led him around the back of the Hotel; Wesley didn't wonder how she knew the way.

The sight that struck him as he rounded the corner was enough to throw all other sight out of his mind. Rebecca hadn't been lying when she said a dragon. The massive creature swooped overhead, each beat of its leathery wings sending waves of rain-soaked wind over them. More terrifying, if possible were the tens of thousands of bloody thirsty, armour plated demons appearing from the fog. Wesley suddenly became very conscious that he didn't have a weapon, well nothing more than a switch blade, and what good would that do?

He turned to Rebecca who had since drawn her broadsword, holding it with a deadly professionalism. 'What can I do?'

She smiled slightly at him. 'That spell you were doing on Cyrus Vail worked well.'

'What? But….'

But Rebecca had already run into the fray, her sword drawn up over her shoulder ready to fall down and decapitate any demon that dared touch her.

Wesley sighed. 'Oh, well…' and silently summoned a dazzling ball of orange fire into his palm. He gasped. It felt different, more powerful; he could feel the magic pouring inside him towards his palm like motorway traffic. She had done something to him. She had changed him.

There was no time to worry about his strange new magical ability not when there was a giant, flying lizard screeching above him. He drew back his palm and took aim.

'I want to slay the dragon.'

No sooner than the words had tumbled out of his mouth then said dragon burst into unnatural orange flame.

'Not tonight Prince Charming,' Spike chuckled. 'Someone beat you to it.'

Angel chose to ignore Spike's jibe. 'What the Hell was that?'

Illyria approached, a frown marring her features. 'A being if great power.'

'Do I even want to know what that means for us?' Gunn gasped, trying to stop his guts from falling out right there on the pavement.

There was another massive explosion, which shook the earth beneath them, taking down another troop of demons. The pavement began cracking beneath their feet and the air was filled with the screams of the dying demons.

Angel turned towards the others. 'I think it means I don't care.' He drew his sword once again and said. 'Come on.' Before running into the fray.

It was like world war three had just erupted around them as the four of them staggered down the alley, dodging pools of orange flame that seemed to emanate from the opposite end. As soon as they entered the tight space, the remaining demons of which there were hundreds, fell upon them, teeth bared, baying for blood.

Angel was aware of very little as instinct took over and his muscles began moving as if of their own accord. He was aware of Gunn falling quite early on and Illyria stopping to guard the fallen man. He could feel Spike next to him, every so often, hearing the sound of his leather duster whistle through the air over the sound of battle. It did occur to him how strange it was that Spike was to be the person he would die with. He always imagined that he would die alone, rather than his former protégé, enemy and now, in a way, friend.

Maybe he should have been paying more attention to what was going on around him because while he was lost in his thoughts one demon managed to tear a chunk out of his shoulder and Angel collapsed in pain, almost immediately. He lay on the cold, wet pavement, conscious for barely a few seconds before drifting away.

I'm dead. I'm in Hell. Special vampire Hell, reserved for those who destroy the world and people who spit their chewing gum on the pavement.

It was strange though, Hell wasn't at all like Angel remembered. This one was comfortable and warm and dry, almost like a duvet. And the mattress was great, not too soft, just the way he liked it. Maybe they were just letting him rest awhile before starting the soul-destroying torture. Yeah, that must be it, luring him into a false sense of security.

It occurred to Angel that maybe he should open his eyes but the lids were so heavy. He couldn't remember being so tired and come to think of it this was his first chance to properly relax since the apocalypse…

Angel shot out of bed so quickly that all his second-hand pigs' blood rushed to his head making him feel uncomfortably dizzy. The feeling of turmoil was the discovery that he wasn't in Hell at all, not unless Hell looked a lot like his room at the Hyperion Hotel.

He stared down at his clothes, the same as the one's he's been wearing in the alley apart from the shirt which was blue but he recognised it as his own, they were still slightly damp and someone had removed his socks and shoes and hung his leather jacket over the arm-chair in the corner. Well, now was the time to find out who that someone was.

He decided to take the lift down to the lobby, not so much for the change more because he felt that his legs my give out on the way down.

He found the lobby empty but just as he remembered it. However, he heard hushed voices coming from the office so made his way there. The speakers were a man, whose whisper was nothing more than a deep rumble and an unfamiliar female voice.

Angel opened the door to see a sight he would never have expected, in this world or the next. A pretty, young girl dressed in an over-sized grey jumper, which he realised was his perched on a desk talking in furtive tones, to a miraculously alive, Wesley.

'Wesley?'

Their talk stopped as they both looked up at him. Wesley grinned broadly and stepped forward to greet his friend. Angel met him in a meaningful hug. There had been no time to deal with his feelings when Illyria had announced his oldest friend's death and now he was grateful he would never have to now.

'How? Illyria said you were dead,' Angel spluttered as the two men broke away.

Wesley continued grinning. 'Illyria greatly exaggerated.' He gestured to the woman behind him, who responded with a shy wave. 'This is Rebecca. She saved my life. Don't worry, she works for the Powers.'

Angel approached the girl. 'That's my shirt.'

'Um…yeah,' she replied. 'My stuff got wet. I didn't think you'd mind after me and Wes just saved you like that.'

Angel shrugged. 'Whatever. So, _now_ the Powers decided to step in? You took you're time.'

'Hey, don't blame me,' Rebecca raised her hands defensively. 'It's got nothing to do with me. And besides you didn't exactly give us an abundance of warning, Mister Spur-of-the-Moment.'

'So, the orange fire that was you?'

Rebecca shook her head. 'Uh uh. That was Wes; I just needed to fill up his magical capacity a bit. You know give him a bit extra and…'

Wes shrugged. 'It wears off after a while.'

'So where's everyone else? Gunn… I saw him fall…'

'Everyone's fine. Well, Spike's still sleeping and Illyria's upstairs doing whatever it is Illyria does. We took Gunn to the hospital earlier. They wouldn't tell us anything, not being family but you know Charles. As clichéd as it sounds, he's a fighter.'

Angel nodded silently. 'Okay, me and Wes are going to the hospital. We'll see where a bit of persuasion can get us.'

'Persuasion?' Wesley raised a sardonic eyebrow.

'Alright, threats. Failing that flirting,' Angel smiled. 'Rebecca stay here and keep an eye on Illyria and Spike. Especially Spike. He's… Never mind. Oh, and if a young guy named Connor comes by tell him… tell him I'm okay.'

He stood up, feeling the familiar mantle of leader draping itself over his shoulders before looking down at his bare feet. 'Oh, and can someone tell me where my shoes are?'

'No, his name is Angel. Yes, that is his real name.'

The receptionist rolled her eyes and began twisting a strand of peroxide blonde hair around her finger. 'Okay, you got a surname to go with that?'

'No, no surname just Angel,' Connor explained exasperatedly.

The girl frowned. 'You sure that's his real name, 'cause you know just Angel it's a bit weird unless he's famous like Madonna then it's okay… It's not like European or anything or one of those funny Chinese names…' Connor thumped the desk hard with his fist in answer. 'Sheesh, cool it cutie.'

Connor shifted from foot to foot impatiently as he watched the girls manicured fingernails darted over the keyboard.

'Nope, sorry honey. No Angel's here.'

Connor growled in frustration, running his fingers through his hair as he turned around to kick the vending machine.

'It was no trouble!' The ditzy blonde called after him with not a small note of sarcasm lacing her tone.

Connor ignored the girl, though he couldn't help but feel slightly sorry for being so rude. The logical part of his brain kept insisting that she dealt with hundreds of other people everyday and that she had done everything she could to help but that rational part was quickly being overwhelmed by the anger that always came as a substitute for fear.

He didn't like the vulnerability of being in a situation that he didn't have control over. It made it want to hit something. Like the vending machine. But where was he? Connor couldn't believe he had left him like that ready to face God knows what. So what if Connor couldn't bring himself to love Angel like a father, he was still a friend and he had never been know to just leave friends in trouble.

At least Connor, the one with the fake memories and the fake family, was loyal to his friends. Ever since he had met Angel and the truth had come out his head had been more mixed up than a bowl of fruit salad. He had begun to divide his mind into two sections, the Proto-Connor and him, as he knew he should be. So far it seemed like it was working. He could tap into his old memories and feelings and experience them just like his regular ones and know that they weren't real and that he wasn't him doing those terrible things. Like a cutting off ears. Gross. However, it wasn't always so clear cut, sometimes in times of stress such as this he felt the other Connor leaking into his psyche like toxic waste, slowly drowning everything he once was.

Connor took several deep breaths and counted to ten, something his mother encouraged with startling regularity. Maybe if he just…

'Connor!'

Connor turned around to see Angel running towards him across the busy waiting room. Trailing behind him was Wesley. Both of them looked out of place in the ordinary setting. Not just their clothes which were sombre and dark (Connor didn't know why they all insisted on dressing like they were in mourning) but the way they moved. Even Wesley moved with a deadly athleticism that set him apart from the crowds and from a distance it seemed as if the crowd unconsciously parted for the Vampire and the Watcher.

'D…Angel!' Connor leaped forward. 'Are you okay? What happened? Is the world saved?'

Angel smiled at his son's frantic energy. He by far preferred the new model son though every time he saw him he found himself regretting that he could never have provided Connor with this life himself. 'Yes, fine. I'll tell you later. Yes, just about.' He returned his son's grin. 'Gunn got hurt pretty bad. We've come to check up on him.'

'I don't think they'll let you see him, they're really busy after the 'earthquake'.'

Angel glanced round the waiting room; it was more packed than usual. Most of the people there were walking wounded and he could see doctors and nurses dashing backwards and forwards, flipping through their clipboards at double speed. 'So that's what they're saying it was.'

He glanced at Wesley who shrugged. 'It's better than teenage gangs drugged up on PCP.'

'Oh, there was one of those too,' Connor added. 'An earthquake and a drug-fuelled riot.'

'I suppose it's good to retain some tradition,' Wesley replied dryly. 'And obviously they're all buying it.'

Connor nodded. 'People are so stupid. Can't they see what's going on right in front of their eyes?'

'Sometimes they don't want to,' Angel said placing a hand on his Connor's shoulder. 'And besides what choice do they have when vampires and demons and evil law firms don't exist. Okay, scratch the last one. Wes?'

Wesley had since wandered away down the corridor drawing back a floral curtain to reveal Gunn lying in the bed, dressed in an unflattering green hospital robe, hooked up to numerous bleeping machines but thankful conscious and propped up in the bed.

'Gunn,' Angel said approaching his old friend. 'You're alright!'

Charles Gunn smiled weakly. 'Well done, man. You know it'll take more than a bloodthirsty demon hoard to bring Charles Gunn down. Hey I thought you was dead?' He directed this last comment at Wesley

Wesley grinned. 'As I said the rumours of my death were greatly exaggerated. Sorry to disappoint.'

'So, is anyone gonna explain what happened?'

Angel sunk himself into the brown plastic covered chair beside the bed, both Connor and Gunn turned to look at him, expectantly. 'I don't really know,' their leader admitted tiredly. 'I passed out. By the way how long have I been out?'

'Nearly 36 hours,' Wesley answered.

Gunn frowned. 'So, what did happen in that alley? What was that scary-ass orange fire stuff?'

Wesley looked down to study his shoes. 'That was me. I'm sorry if it scared you.'

Gunn nearly choked on his tongue in shock 'I knew you was good at that magic shit,' He said. 'But damn that was some major mojo.'

'I'm not!' Wesley protested. 'I mean… Cyrus Vail destroyed me. My magic next to his looked like… Well, I might as well have pulled a rabbit out of a hat for all the good it did. I would have died,' he smiled sardonically as he reminisced over the previous day's events. 'I think I did for a moment. But Rebecca, she did something to me and then my magic; it was more power than I'd ever felt before.'

There was silence as Connor and Gunn absorbed this new information until Connor opened his mouth hesitantly and said. 'So, who's Rebecca again?'

'We have no idea,' Angel said. 'She told Wes that she worked for the Powers and we have no reason to think otherwise but…'

'But she's given us no reason to think thatwise either,' Gunn filled in. 'I got it.'

Angel shook his head tiredly. 'We just have too…'

But he didn't have the chance to finish his sentence as the floral curtain parted to reveal an irate middle aged doctor, dressed in the obligatory white coat and wearing wired rimmed glasses and a lurid tie. He frowned as he saw his patient's visitors.

'What's going on here then?' The man asked accusingly.

'Um… we were just leaving,' Connor said quickly as the others began to move.

'It's cool with me that they stay,' Gunn added.

'But it's not cool with me,' the doctor spat back. 'I'm guessing you're not family.'

'Hey, that's just an assumption,' Gunn said in his best 'You've just insulted me harshly' tone. 'These guys just happen to be my brothers.'

The doctor raised and eyebrow, disbelievingly. 'Oh, really?'

'Yeah, we've just got different mothers.'

The doctor drew the curtain forceful and gesture at the visitors to go threw it. 'Stop wasting my time!'

Angel turned back to Gunn as he left. 'I'll come see you later. Oh, and glad to see you alive.'

'You too.'

Spike was dreaming. That he was fully aware of. Nothing could be this perfect in reality. Good things like this just didn't happen to him.

'What you thinking about?'

He rolled over to gaze into Buffy's brilliant green eyes. She lay there in the bed beside him, curled up like a golden cat, her head resting in his bare shoulder.

'You, Kitten,' he smiled, placing a kiss on the top of her golden head. 'How beautiful you are and how lucky I am.'

'You're not lucky, Spike,' Buffy whispered. 'You and me we were always meant to be together. I see that now.' She leant over him; her golden skin pressed against his sun-starved alabaster and brushed a kiss over his waiting lips. 'I love you.'

'You know I love you too.'

Tears were threatening to spill in Spike's eyes, partly because this was all too perfect and partly because it wasn't and couldn't be real. The girl of his dreams rolling on top him, their bodies pressed together as close as two bodies could be, her tongue tasting his…

Rebecca watched the sleeping vampire thrashing in bed, moaning, whispering that name over and over again. She hoped that when all this was over Spike would be allowed to be with that girl in his dreams. It didn't seem likely; this was far from over.

'He desires the love of the vampire Slayer.'

Rebecca whirled around to see the source of the hauntingly empty voice.

'Illyria. Hi.'

The blue woman, wearing the shell of Winifred Burkle, approached the door to Spike's room, her heavy boots making little noise on the carpeted floor. 'Who are you?'

'What do you mean metaphysically?' Rebecca smiled grimly. 'Go on tell me. Who am I, Illyria?

'You are not human,' the Goddess answered letting Rebecca's disrespectful tone slide. 'You don't smell human. There's the scent of death on you. You reek of it.'

'Oh, and I just showered this morning.'

'In my day no creature would dare talk to me in the tone you do,' Illyria snapped, angered by her flippancy. 'I know you are a being of great power. Not a vampire or a demon…'

Rebecca turned to stare Illyria straight in the eye. 'Okay, you've just told me everything I'm not.'

'Buffy!'

Rebecca glanced back to see Spike sitting up straight in bed, panting, gasping for unneeded breath. When she turned back round Illyria was gone.

She approached the vampire. 'Hi, Spike. I'm Rebecca.'

'Am I dead?' He asked instantly.

'That's today's most popular question,' she smiled. 'No. And before you asked everyone's fine. Angel and Wesley just went out but they'll be back soon. I left you're shirt over there,' she gestured to the armchair in the corner expecting him to get up and put it on instead he just sat there.

'Um…' He said awkwardly, glancing downwards. 'Just give me a minute. Cramp, you know.'

'Oh! Right. I'll just be downstairs. Come down when you've sorted that cramp out.'

Angel and Wesley had returned with Connor by the time Spike had immerged. Illyria had taken to sitting very still on the central round sofa in the lobby and had been all the time it had taken Rebecca to make a cup of coffee using Nescafe from a full cupboard. The fridge also had been recently restocked with a variety of things ranging from grapefruit juice to O-Positive.

Angel came to the Hotel determined to confront Rebecca about her work for the Powers and after introducing her to Connor, who she seemed to have already heard of he rounded on her.

'Who exactly are you?' He demanded arms folded across his chest in what he knew to be an intimidating manner. 'And don't give me that crap about working for the Powers that Be 'cause we've heard that before from people who turned out not to like us too much.'

'What do you want me to do? Prove it?' She asked flippantly. 'They don't exactly hand out ID cards.'

'Well, what are you here for?' Wesley interrupted. 'I understand that you came to help Angel but why save me?'

Rebecca turned to him with a frown. 'Would you prefer I hadn't?'

'That's not what I meant. But what did you as a representative of the Powers go out of your way to save me from death?'

'Because you're on my list,' she answered simply as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.

'List?' Spike said incredulously. 'What bloody list?'

'Spike…' Angel growled before turning back to Rebecca. 'What list?'

For an answer she dived into the pocket of her jeans and drew out a crumpled piece of paper that looked like it had been a paper bag in a previous life. 'It's kinda like a to-do list. The apocalypse in coming and I mean the real one, the one Wolfram and Hart were getting so irate about…'

'Hey, I thought that was the major apocalypse,' Angel blurted out, shocked. 'The one I would play a major part in?'

'Excuse me, I was just going to explain,' Rebecca said, indignantly. 'And for your information that was nothing. A few weeks researching the Circle of the Black Thorn and you think that's an apocalypse. Wolfram and Hart are only a small part if what's coming. The Powers aren't even sure but there are a few prophecies…'

'I hate prophecies,' Connor muttered and he should, his whole life was dictated by prophecies written thousands of years ago.

Rebecca continued. 'There are certain people who are needed, like imperatively needed, to save the world and those are the people are on my list.'

There was a dead silence as each of them absorbed the information that not only was their yet another apocalypse around the corner but also the fact that Wolfram and Hart were 'Nothing compared to what's coming'.

'So,' Spike said finally. 'Everyone here we're all on your little shopping list?'

'Not just you,' Rebecca said evenly, very aware that everyone was looking at her disbelievingly. 'Your Slayer, Buffy or Betty or Wilma, whatever her name is. She's on it. That other one Faith. Willow Rosenberg, Xander Harris. The list is long and it's gonna take me a while so I need your help.'

'How can we help you?' Angel asked.

'Well, I thought I'd start in the States as I was here and I was wondering if you knew where I could find the guy who's at the top of my list.'

'Who's that?' asked Wesley.

'His name's Lindsey Macdonald.'


	2. Chapter 2

CHAPTER TWO

Lorne was laying half-conscious across the small table in the corner of a dingy North Californian bar. The bar, which he had been occupying for the past forty-eight hours was filthy, the glasses smeared and the bartender seemed completely unable to understand the concept behind a Seabreeze (what kind of bar didn't stock fresh grapefruit juice?). But they did have tequila and it was the nearest place out of LA that was specifically for demons.

'Hey, buddy it's not that I don't I enjoy your company but if you don't leave anytime soon I'm gonna have to start charging rent.' Lorne looked up to see the ratty little face of the bartender Willy, collecting a handful of shot glasses.

'Just get me another one, El Rodento,' Lorne grunted. 'Scratch that make it a nice Baker's dozen. If you're lucky I might be dead by morning.'

'It is morning, Greenie,' Willy said drawing up a chair opposite Lorne. 'Everyone else's moved on. Come on, I'm a bartender and I'm bored. Why don't you tell me what's up?'

Lorne sat up and patted his now stained, Liberachi jacket for his cigarettes. He found that carton empty and sighed. Willy lent over and offered him one of his own, which Lorne accepted and lighting it, took a grateful drag.

'Well, it's simple, friend but not pretty.' Willy lent forward eagerly. 'I killed a guy. He was just a kid; he didn't really deserve it…'

'What!' Willy looked disappointed. 'That's nothing! Have you seen the low-life scum I scrap off the bottom of this floor? Baby-eaters, Praying mantises…'

'But it's not in my nature!' Lorne exclaimed. 'I'm peaceful and friendly and loveable. I'm a musical empath demon for Christ's sake!' He took another drag from the smouldering cigarette. 'Besides that's not even the worst, though it's not exactly on the same par as baby-eating, which by the way gross!'

'Did anyone ever tell you, you talk to much?'

'Hey, you asked for the story.' Willy tapped the table impatiently. 'Fine. Here's the piece de resistance… I betrayed my friends. Left them to die. They were the best friend's I ever had and now they're probably dead…'

'I can't believe you!' Rebecca yelled.

Angel stepped forward eager to defend himself. 'He's evil! I couldn't trust him. He had to go.'

'But you killed him!' She was irate now. 'I thought you had a soul. I thought you didn't kill humans.'

Angel rolled his eyes and muttered. 'He was hardly human.'

'Shut up.'

'Why should we listen to you anyway? I think this whole 'I love Lindsey the evil Lawyer' thing is enough to prove that maybe you aren't what you say. You could work for Wolfram and Hart. And besides I'm not gonna apologise for doing something I thought was right!'

Rebecca turned away from him running her fingers through her hair distractedly. 'I'm not asking you to apologise, I'm asking you to…'

'What?' Angel asked hands raised defensively. 'What do you want me to do?'

'I think,' Wesley interrupted. 'We should discuss this calmly. If Lindsey is important then we have to consider how we're going to get him back.'

Connor cleared his throat loudly. 'Um… I know I'm not really in on the facts but uh… How do we know this Lindsey guy's dead? You set Lorne to kill him but when has Lorne ever successfully killed anyone. He may have bottled it, killing a human's a big deal so… It's a long shot, I know but…'

Wesley nodded. 'If we could find Lorne we could find out where Lindsey is or at least whether he's alive or not.'

'That's a great plan,' Spike drawled sarcastically as he jumped on top of the counter. 'But how exactly are we going to find him? It's not really a case of looking in the last place you saw him. It's been two days he could be anywhere by now.'

'Well, you guys are PI's right?' said Connor. 'Before you sold out to the evil lawyers.'

'Connor…' Angel growled before shifting in tone. 'You guys are right. Lets just start by assuming that Lorne hasn't left the state. First will start by searching every demon bar within a ten mile radius of LA, then twenty…'

Wesley sighed as he made his way towards the office. 'Time to get the maps out again.'

Angel rubbed the back of his neck and smiled weakly. 'Just like old times.'

While the others sat in the office sticking pins in maps, Rebecca decided that it would be best if she went out and bought some clothes. She couldn't go round wearing Angel's shirts forever. Even going out now in the over-sized grey shirt she felt like one of those slutty girls who wear there boyfriend's shirts the next morning like a little sign saying 'I've had some, how about you?' as if it were sexy.

The sun was out and shining clearly after the rest torrential rain, though the ground was still damp. It was warm enough that Rebecca didn't need a coat and the air felt fresh as she walked down the sidewalk.

'Rebecca!'

She turned around to see something she did not expect. A tall, skinny, smiley country girl, her dark wavy hair flowing behind her, dressed in jeans and a red T-shirt.

'Illyria,' Rebecca stopped and waited for her to catch up. 'I didn't know you could turn the blue on and off like that.'

'Well gee, it's just a simple atomic translation,' she said in a cheerful Texan accent.

'Huh, you even start talking like her as well,' Rebecca shrugged slightly unnerved. She carried on down the street and Illyria followed. 'What are you doing, Illyria?'

'I'm gonna need some clothes ain't I?' She said before continuing in her usual tones. 'The lawyers have provided clothes for the males but not Fred. When I am Fred I will need clothing.'

They entered the first store they found and Rebecca quickly dived into the rails marked Sale. She didn't have much money and now she was buying for Illyria too she had to be sparing.

Illyria trailed after her seeming overwhelmed by the bright summer colours hanging from rails. Rebecca decided it was probably best that she chose for Illyria as well as herself. She may well be a Goddess but judging from her previous outfit she definitely had sluttier tendencies when it came to clothes.

'Rebecca,' the Goddess said quietly. She turned around a Rebecca saw she was fingering a pretty pink summer dress. Not exactly Rebecca's taste but looking at Fred she could tell it would have suited her. 'Do you think Fred would have liked this dress?'

Rebecca smiled, encouragingly. 'Yeah, sure she would.'

By the time two girls had returned laden with shopping bags, Rebecca now wearing a tight fighting blue shirt and Illyria wearing the pink summer dress, the guys had worked out a couple of places that Lorne may be hiding in.

'There you are!' Spike yelled as they walked in through the double doors. 'Typical birds. We're here doing all the work and you two go shopping!'

Rebecca felt a pang of guilt as she saw the look on Wesley's face when he looked up and he saw Illyria looking exactly like Fred in everyway. The moment of joy, then the realisation as he remembered, then the defeated look as he had to turn away.

'Shut up, Spike,' Angel said. 'It's not like you helped in anyway. So, you ready? I think it'll be best if we split into groups of two. Rebecca and Wes, Spike and Illyria, Me and Connor. We each search a few bars then check back here when we're done.'

Spike raised a hand. 'Um… boss. Point. We don't have a car!'

'Yeah,' said Connor. 'Most of these places are on the outside of town. How are we gonna get there?'

Angel smiled grimly. 'We get the bus.'

'Um…Angel. Do you think we should give up now?' Connor moaned as they exited the latest in a long line of demon scuz holes. It was getting dark now and they had another half a dozen buses to catch before they got back to LA.

'No, no,' Angel said as he darted up a dark alley. 'We've only got one left.'

'Only it's just I'm taking Tracy out tonight, or at least I said I would.'

Angel stopped to look around at his son. 'Who's Tracy?'

'My girlfriend,' Connor answered with a blush. 'I'm sure I've told you about her before.'

Angel sighed. He had forgotten that Connor wasn't part of Angel Investigations. He wasn't one of the gang whose life were hunting demons. He was a teenage boy with his own life and Angel didn't want to stand in the way of that least of all. 'Sure, lets go. I'm sure you can get back in time to take Trixie out.'

'Tracy,' Connor corrected before saying. 'It's okay, if we've only got one left. I'm sure Tracy'd understand if I'm a little late. And besides I'm pretty, defiantly sure that we'll find Lorne in the next one?'

The next bar was small and dingy and quiet. A few demons sat in the corner mumbling in there own clacky language, the jukebox clunked through the final few bars of Queen's 'It's a kind of Magic' other than that it was silent, the other patrons boring holes into the bottoms of their streaky glasses.

'I don't see him,' Angel said, glancing along the bar. 'Maybe we should ask around…'

'Angel!'

The vampire turned around to see the face he least expected to see anywhere. 'Willy the Snitch?'

'Hey, I resent that name,' the tiny bartender, protested as he clapped the vampire on the back. 'That weren't the name my momma gave me. So, what you doing out here in the wilds? I heard somewhere you were dead, we had a little party here.'

'Who told you I was dead?' Angel asked.

Willy shrugged. 'No one, I made it up. Do you like the set up I got here. Not a snazzy as the joint I had up in Sunnydale I grant you but not bad, huh?'

Connor looked around the bulky figure of his father and asked. 'We were wondering if you could help us.'

'Hey, who's the teeny bopper?' Willy said. 'You know I have a strict no kids policy. Someone could get eaten and then I'm in for one Hell of a lawsuit.'

'Connor can hold his own,' Angel replied. 'He's my son.'

'Angel has a son!' the bartender exclaimed. 'I thought you was a eunuch?'

'Willy, shut up. Were looking for a guy, kinda green…'

'I DID IT MY WAY…!'

'Found him.'

They turned around to find their green-skinned, red-horned friend, drunkenly staggering onto the small table bellowing, in the most tuneful manner possible 'I did it my way'.

Lorne squinted blurrily at them before waving excitedly. 'Angelcakes! Your alive!' A bottle of tequila fell to the floor with a smash. 'Ooops!'

'He yours then?' Willy asked, making no move to clean the shattered glass strewing the floor.

'Unfortunately,' Angel muttered before striding towards Lorne, Connor tailing him. 'Lorne! Maybe you should get down.'

'What, off this rickety table?' Lorne slurred. 'Yeah, that would be a good idea.' He jumped down, taking the table down with him. 'Oh, I feel like a nickel in a slot machine.'

'Now, how are we going to get him home,' Connor asked. Angel shrugged.

'Hey, Handsome,' Lorne said, pointing at Connor excitedly. 'It sure has been a long time since you stopped by. You know, I remember when you were born…'

Angel dragged the drunk demon away from a recoiling Connor and said quietly. 'Now Lorne we have to go home. Home, to the Hotel.'

To Angel's surprise Lorne pushed him away with such force that the vampire staggered back. 'Oh, no no no,' Lorne said panicked. 'I can't go back there. Everyone will know. You can say what you like Peach Pie but I am completely, 100 not coming…'

Connor sighed and with a quick jab knocked the demon out cold.

'Connor!' Angel said. 'What was that for?'

Connor shrugged and bent to pick up Lorne from wear he lay on the tequila soaked floor. 'Look, I know it's easier to get drunks home that aren't trying to hug you to death. Believe me it's best if he's unconscious.'

Angel sighed and draped Lorne's left arm around his shoulders.

Whoa, Lorne thought as he resurfaced from a long spell of unconsciousness. His brain was throbbing with the sort of alcohol-induced pain he hadn't felt since December 31st 1999. He peeled open his eye lids with some difficulty as it seemed someone had weighed them down with concrete, and said, 'Whoa! If I wasn't trapped inside some weird tequila fuelled dreamland, then I'd say that I was lying in my own bed at the Hyperion.'

'I don't know about dreamland but you are at the Hyperion.' Lorne turned round to see Angel sitting in the corner, brooding in the shadows.

'Hey, hey, Angelcakes,' Lorne said as his voice sent reverberations of pain ringing through his head. 'Use your indoor voice when you explain, please.'

Angel smiled ruefully. 'Sorry, but I think maybe you deserve some pain. Me and Connor found you all but drowned in tequila.'

Lorne groaned. 'Oh God, I remember and I wish to God I didn't. What about the bump on my noggin? I swear one day I will surely wake up in a coma. If that were at all possible.'

'Connor knocked your lights out when you started singing 'I did it my way'.'

Lorne groaned again as he shrivelled up in embarrassment. 'And I'm guessing it was more Oldman than Sinatra, huh? Oh Lord, may the ground swallow me whole!' Angel sat silently for a minute, staring at the tops of his shoes. 'Hey, Cinnamon Bun why with the brood-face? You survived, were back. No one else dead? Something you're not telling me?'

'No. no. Everyone's fine, they're downstairs. And I'm not brooding.'

'With those pants? I beg to differ. Come on, what is it?'

Angel exhaled an unnecessary breath before asking, 'Did you do it? What I asked you, did you do it?'

Lorne hesitated momentarily as his smile slipped from his lips and he turned his head away to intensely study the ceiling. 'Yeah. I did it.'

Angel wandered downstairs to the others, minus Illyria who had wandered off alone again. They all looked up at him expectantly but Angel's resigned face told them everything.

'So the lawyer's dead,' Spike said first. 'That doesn't leave us with many options.'

They turned to Rebecca who sat on the counter chewing her lip thoughtfully. She offered no input.

'We got him out of a Hell dimension once,' Wesley suggested doubtfully. 'We may be able to do it again.'

Rebecca shook her head. 'He wasn't dead then, it was just a Hell dimension created by Wolfram and Hart. He might not even be in a Hell dimension.' She sat silently for a moment. 'We could ask the Oracles.'

'Um… They're dead too,' Angel said, hopelessly. 'Actually, funny story that was kinda Lindsey's fault. Talk about shooting yourself in the foot.'

Rebecca frowned at him. 'Dead? What, you think if some one just kills them no more Oracles. They'll be more in a different place but there are still Oracles. You don't think that those two were the same as the ones a Delphi thousands of years ago?'

'So, you know where these Oracles are?' Angel asked.

Rebecca glanced around the room. 'Yeah. I'll show you now if you want.'

They called a cab and Rebecca stopped it by the park, it was thankfully dark but as Angel paid the driver and extortionate amount for the small ride he was struck by the need he had for a car. A mustang maybe, what's a better ride than a mustang?

'So where are we going?' He asked Rebecca after she glanced around and set off into the dark. He hurried after her towards the green shimmery lake and a small children's play park. 'Don't tell me, our earthly link with the Powers that Be live under the jungle gym.'

'I wish.'

Angel followed Rebecca's disdainful look to the shores of the dirty, litter-strewn lake.

'Oh, no no no.' Rebecca ran to the side and began taking off her cardigan; Angel followed and whipped off his coat. 'We're not going in are we? Can you even breathe under water?'

'No, I can't,' She answered, with a deep breath. 'I wouldn't take your shoes off. I don't want to know what's on the bottom of that.' She turned back to Angel and extended an arm, which he took, and slowly the two of them waded into the cold, murky water.

First it only just swept over there tops of their shoes and then swamped the bottoms of their trousers and up their calves.

Angel shuddered. 'This is really gross.'

'Says you. I'm the one who can actually feel cold. And it looks as though I may catch typhoid.'

The water was now up to their waists and Angel could feel Rebecca shivering next to him. He was just noticing how steady the descent was when the bottom fell away from beneath his feet and the two of them were completely submerged.

No sooner had Angel started thrashing in a vain attempt to reach the surface did he fall flat on his face on a cold hard surface. He pulled himself up shaking off the pain and blinking as he looked around at a huge, cavernous hall. The marble beams swept up into beautiful gothic arches and the 12ft marble columns were plainly carved with similar swirls. He looked to his left and went to help Rebecca up.

'You okay?'

She shook him off and got to her feet. 'Yeah, fine. They're here.'

Angel turned to see three figures appear. One was shrunken and stooped, an old woman draped in black, leaning heavily on the arm of a middle aged woman dressed in a plain, faded blue summer dress, her mousy hair tied back tightly in a bun. The last mysterious figure was a young girl of a bout twelve dressed in a white party dress, decorated with a thick pink belt. The child skipped ahead of the two adults and sat herself cross-legged at Angel's feet. Angel took an unconscious step back. In his experience millennia old entities that took the form of little girls were never good news.

'We were wondering when you would come to visit us,' the old woman announced, directing her words at Angel. 'It was thought that you were all but lost to us. We were in the market for a new Champion.'

'I'm here now and I need your help,' Angel stated briskly.

The old lady made a sound reminiscent of seagulls crying, which Angel assumed must be an ironic laugh. 'You need help rectifying your mistakes. Not that should matter. We would be happy to help you repent if had you not been so distant with us in recent times, if you had not abandoned us.'

'Don't tell me the all-powerful Powers that Be hold grudges,' Angel said. 'Anyway it's not like you've been overly helpful when I've needed you. It seems to me that I've worked my ass off for you, to do what you want, to fulfil every prophecy you've sent while you sit on up their on high doing jack all!'

He yelled this last part not realising how angry he had been. How lost and frustrated he had felt at the unanimity of these so-called 'Higher Beings'.

'We have catered to your selfish needs.' The second Oracle spoke for the first time with a hint of irritation in her voice. 'We gave you the Shanshu, we gave you a Guide.'

'Only to take her away from me!' Angel shouted.

'Cordelia is beyond you now. We have offered you a new Guide to led you through the final chapter of your journey.'

'You can't do that! You can't get me a different girl and expect me to be okay with it!' Angel was furious by now. 'You can't mess around with people's feelings like that.'

The little girl stood up and slipped her cool hand through Angel's. The vampire looked down into the girl's angelic little face complete with button nose and symmetrical dimples. 'Don't be sad,' she said simply. 'Your hand, it lacks the warmth of humanity. These emotions you are feeling, love, regret, loneliness. They are human emotions. Are you human?'

'I'm working on it,' he mumbled.

The girl smiled a bright sunny smile that nevertheless still left Angel cold. 'These emotions are not yours. One day you will be human and you will be free to feel and to love but for now you are a Champion and you must sacrifice yourself for the needs of the greater good.'

Angel was silent. He understood what the child was saying. He didn't like it but he understood it. There would be a time, if he proved worthy when he would be able to be happy when he would have everything. But did that mean that now he had to have nothing? 'That's not fair.'

'And I thought I was the child here,' the little girl laughed. 'The man you are looking for is in the Waiting Room…'

'Waiting Room? What like a doctor's surgery?'

The old woman nodded at Rebecca who had kept silent through out the whole altercation. 'She knows. She'll guide you. It is here job after all.'

Angel jammed his fists in the pockets of his leather coat, which was strangely dry after the dip in the pond, something he hadn't noticed when he had first fallen into the temple. 'Fine, the Waiting Room. You've told us all we need to know, can you send us back?'

The middle-aged woman tutted, severely like a Victorian schoolmistress. 'This one's insolence is not befitting of a creature so small.'

'We were warned,' answered the little girl.

'Fine…'

Angel was momentarily blinded by a sickeningly bright white light. It was some seconds before his vision was cleared of dark spots and swirling patterns, when they had dissipated he realised where he was. The courtyard outside the Hotel he stood up and made for the door, he felt Rebecca follow.

'Angel,'

He turned back round to see her studying him intensely. She seemed to be deciding how best to proceed. 'What?'

She took a deep breath and said cautiously, 'I'm sorry. I'm sorry about Cordelia.'

Angel turned away, not really able to look at her. 'She's been gone a while now.'

'I know you wish I was her,' she continued. 'But I'm not. The Waiting Room, it sounds innocent but it's not nice. I know you probably hate me right now, you all do. I'm a stranger I get that. But I need to know you can deal.'

Angel didn't answer. He couldn't, not then. His emotions were to mixed up, so much had happened these past few days. Without another word he disappeared up the steps and into the Hotel.


	3. Chapter 3

CHAPTER THREE

'You know, Lindsey, life is like checks and balances. Have you heard that saying before? You know why you're here?'

Lindsey sighed, rolling his eyes. This was getting boring. 'Because my checks don't quite balance right?' he drawled. 'Just send me to Hell already and cut the psycho babble.'

The giant head in front of him bubbled in it's jar of grey, viscous liquid. Yes, that's right Lindsey Macdonald's posthumous psychiatrist was a giant purple head. This had to be death; nothing on earth could be this weird. 'Is that what you want, Lindsey? To go to Hell?'

Lindsey eyes roved around the plain white room again in irritation. Enough of the white. Everything was white here, the long walls, the never-ending space above, the scratchy pyjamas they had to wear. Much more of this and he was defiantly going to flip out. 'I'm dead. I thought you just stuck me in my pigeon hole and that was it.'

The head bubbled again and said calmly in its irritatingly sweet voice. 'Lindsey, you know its not that easy. You of all people understand the grey between black and white. The quicker we work out whether underneath all that grey your white or black the quicker you can get on resting in peace.'

Lindsey said nothing but found himself wondering whether the head was male or female, or both. He wondered what it's name was. Probably Hilary. That was an ambisexual name. Either that or Lesley.

'Let's talk about your childhood.'

Lindsey stood up angrily with and air of finality. 'Let's not.' And walked out the room distantly registering the head babbling about the progress they had made in this session.

'Hey, Linds, Linds!'

Lindsey groaned, this day was just getting better and better. He considered just turning around and walking right back to the head but it was too late. He had been spotted.

'It's Lindsey,' He growled.

'Yeah, right. Lindsey, whatever,' Owen Swade waved away his complaints in his excitement. 'Walk with me, walk with me. We have plans to make.'

Lindsey shrugged off the excitable redheaded man. 'No we don't, Owen.'

Owen Swade was the first person Lindsey had met after he had died. He only wished he hadn't. Owen Swade, a conspiracy theorist from San Diego, seemed to be struggling to absorb the fact that he'd been hit by a bus on the way to work. In fact, the annoying man seemed to be of the opinion that this was an elaborate conspiracy and that they were all trapped in a small test community of a Neo-Orwellian society. How he explained away the talking heads Lindsey didn't know.

'Keep it down, buddy, the Feds'll hear,' Owen said before adding loudly. 'Good idea, Lindsey, let's go play cards, cards'll be fun.'

They all had Chinese that night. No one could be bothered to cook even with the excessive amounts of food they now assumed Wolfram and Hart had provided. They sat in the foyer, chairs draw up to the counter, even Illyria had perched herself up their and was picking through a carton of egg-fried rice. Wesley had opened a bottle of wine but she didn't think much of that.

Lorne had come down stairs earlier that afternoon and after forcing Rebecca into a hesitant chorus of Bobby Darin's 'Beyond the Sea' had taken to the newcomer with glorious abandon. It was mostly his inane questions that kept the meal from being eaten in total silence.

'So, Sugar,' Lorne asked swallowing a mouthful of sweet and sour pork. 'You gonna be staying with us long? 'Cause in the noble fight against evil, one more is never too many.'

'I think I'll be here a while,' Rebecca smiled slightly. 'It's not like you're pushed for space.'

'We sure ain't,' Lorne chuckled. 'Five floors, a hundred odd rooms. I don't even know what's in half of them. Hey, Angel why don't we quit the detecting gig and just open ourselves up a hotel.'

Angel didn't answer his ominous mood seemed to have cloaked the whole hotel in despondency and a generally introspective frame of mind. No one had time for Lorne's extrovert personality.

Lorne didn't care. Or maybe he just thought that his falsely cheery mood would draw the others out of their own thoughts. 'The sooner we get Angel Investigations back on it's hind legs the quicker we can get things back to normal.'

Angel drew back his chair with a loud scraping noise and threw down his carton of chicken chow mien before striding up the stairs towards his bat cave. The group exchange nervous glances but even Spike didn't dare pass a sarky comment, contenting himself with a quick raise of his expressive eyebrows. With a deep sigh Wesley followed.

Illyria, unaware of the tension poked at her food nervously. 'Why is the meat luminous?'

Angel threw himself in an armchair. He knew that leaving like that had been rude and even childish but he didn't know how much longer he could but up with Lorne's strained babbling without ripping out someone's throat and seriously staining the flooring. After a moments hesitation he reached over to the bookshelf and grabbed his sketchbook. Drawing helped him think, always had done. It was the only thing he had ever been really good at, apart from killing and torture, drawing was a talent to boast about. His jaw clenched he put the pencil to paper and started sketching.

There was a light knock on the door and Wesley entered. Wesley often did that whenever he started drawing because drawing often meant brooding and brooding wasn't a hobby his friends encouraged. Come to think of it Wesley hadn't done this often in a while. Angel had often tried to pinpoint the exact moment that things had changed between him and Wesley. It was easy to say that it was the night Connor had been taken and maybe it was but Angel couldn't help but think it was the moment when he had abandoned the gang and Wesley had taken his role in Angel Investigations. It had surprised him. It was probably that moment when Angel had realised that his friend wasn't a sidekick but an equal. Or a rival.

'What's the problem Angel?' Wesley asked, leaning against the doorframe. Angel continued sketching, not looking up.

'Look, Wes. I don't really want to talk about it,' he answered, dismissively.

'Is it that you don't want to talk about it or that you don't want to talk about it with me?' Angel didn't answer. Wesley sounded angry. 'What did Lorne say? Or was it something else?'

'I just… It was what he was… It was him. I should probably say something… It's just being back here.'

Wesley nodded. 'Angel Investigations. You don't mean to start up again.'

Angel threw down his pencil angrily. 'Cordelia is dead! Fred is dead! How can we go back to the way it was? Things have happened; I've been the CEO of Goddamn Evil Incorporated. I could have… I could have killed you all…'

'No you didn't Angel. We all made the decision to stay, you're not responsible for the way we live our lives.'

'Then why do I feel that way?' He paused for a moment. 'The Oracles, they said that Cordelia was beyond me.'

'And you're thinking that if Rebecca's here then why isn't Cordelia.' Angel nodded mutely, Wesley continued solemnly. 'In a way it's good to see you react like this. When Fred died I wanted to hurt everyone around me. Especially Illyria, but that's not the point. You…You're different Angel you don't express your grief. We all wondered, after Cordelia died…'

'I just wanted to forget about it,' He muttered. 'I wanted to pretend that it wasn't happening.'

'You can't do that forever.'

'No, you're right, but how are we supposed to carry on? How's it ever supposed to be the same?'

Wesley sighed deeply as he tried to find words that would comfort his friend and himself. 'We don't just carry on. We evolve; we change and make new situations.' He paused for a moment before making for the door. 'We'll talk more about the business after we've sorted out this issue with Lindsey.'

Wesley closed the door gently behind him and Angel picked up his pencil again. He continued drawing. He drew for hours and when he was finished he looked down to see an accurate grey-scale likeness of the Hyperion lobby. Cordelia was answering the phone, Fred was focused on the lap top her round glasses balanced on the tip of her nose, Wesley sat on the sofa a collection of books surrounding him and Gunn sat on the floor polishing his axe. He stared at it for a few moments, studying the images before violent screwing up the paper and throwing it straight into the bin.

'I've told you before and I'll tell you again, if we don't get out of here soon they're going to kill us!'

Lindsey closed his eyes and pretended to sleep, maybe then Owen would finally stop talking. He was right in one way, there was a conspiracy. This wasn't purgatory, this was Hell and Lindsey hadn't known it but this was his worst nightmare.

'Either that or suck out our brains. Come on, Lindsey, am I right or am I right?'

Lindsey turned up giving up on his fained sleep and shouted 'You're wrong Owen! When are you gonna get it through your damn thick skull that we ain't going nowhere alive. And you know why that is? It's 'cause we're dead!'

Owen opened and closed his mouth a few times before leaning forward concernedly. 'They haven't got to you too have they, Linds? Don't be buying that crap about 'that place between life and death'. It's the Men in Black. I swear to you the last thing I remember seeing was a guy in one of them snazzy suits and he was you know mummering like he was talking to one of those ear thingies…'

'Shut up, Owen!'

'Anyway that was what made me walk out into the road.'

Lindsey leant back against his little truckle bed; they all had them identical white ones. This was just too much, he thought desperately. Someone get me out of here, please…

'So, how are we going to go about this?'

Spike looked sceptically at the seen facing him and the others. He along with Angel, Wesley, Illyria and Rebecca stood in the dingy alley behind what had once been Caritas. Lorne decided that maybe it was best if he stayed at the Hotel, and waited for news on Gunn. The memories of his past life were a bit too painful. Rebecca had led them to the interdimensional hotspot where so many of their life's major events had occurred. Connor's birth, Darla's death, The Beast's dramatic entrance. It seemed as if most things revolved around this spot.

'Gimme me a minute,' Rebecca murmured as she began running her fingers over the rough surface of the Karaoke bar.

'A minute to do what, have a good feel of the wall?'

'Spike…' Angel growled. 'Just let her do this. The quicker we get this over with the quicker we can get back home and…'

'Get on with our marathon brood-fest,' Spike smirked. 'Have you ever thought about getting sponsored for sulking? You'd raise loads for charity. I'd sponsor you, 50 cents an hour…'

'What exactly are you doing?' Wesley wandered up to Rebecca, who's hands continued to meander over the bricks. 'Is it some kind of ritual?'

'No,' she answered with a slight frown. 'I'm looking for a loose brick. It would be great if you all could give me a hand instead of bickering.'

Spike and Angel slouched towards the wall and started trying to prize the bricks away from the wall. After an exasperated sigh Illyria condescended to join them. 'If I had my powers…'

'But you don't, Blue…' Spike said. 'So shut up and do what the lady says.'

Angel pulled out one of the bricks just above his head and found it hollow. 'Is this it?'

Rebecca grabbed it. 'Fantastic!' She emptied the brick's contents into the palm of her hand. In her hand lay a small square of yellow paper.

'A post-it note?' Spike said incredulously. 'We were looking for a bloody post-it note?'

'It's not the post-it note itself, it's…'

'The incantations on it,' Wesley finished with a nod of understanding. 'Of course. Angel, last time we went to Pylea the portal would only open when we read from the book.'

Angel smiled grimly, as he remembered the various dimensions he had frequented the past few years. 'The magic words.'

Rebecca moved into the centre of the alleyway and indicated that they all do the same. 'Everyone's going to need to hold hands.' She said griping Wesley's as he stood nearest to her. Angel took Wesley's but looked about to protest at having to hold Spike's hand until Rebecca shot him an icy look that told him just what she thought of that sort of childish behaviour. Illyria finished the line, clinging on to Spike. God knows what anyone would think if they happened to wander down the alley at the moment when Rebecca start reading off strange sounding foreign words with lots of 'g's in.

The incantation was not long, a sentence or so but when she was done the portal opened up almost instantly. It started as a small pinprick of blue light hovering before them, but expanded ever outwards until it swallowed the whole width of the alley.

Angel looked at it uneasily, nothing good ever came of portals. 'Abracadabra,' he muttered.

And with that they all jumped through the portal.

Angel and the gang had been gone less than an hour when Lorne got the call from the hospital. Good news, Gunn was coming home. Only problem was Lorne was green. So, he picked up the phone and called the only person left that could help.

'Connor?' He said as Connor picked up the phone after the tenth ring. 'Hey, it's your Uncle Lorne.'

'Oh, hi.' The teenager sounded groggy as if he had just woken up. Who was he kidding, the kid was a student and it was coming up to six, of course he had just woken up.

'Sorry, to bother you kid but I have a teensy conundrum that I could use you help with.'

Lorne heard Connor sit up, eagerly. 'Sure, what do you need?'

'Do you have a car?'

Half an hour later Lorne and Connor returned, the former slightly annoyed that he was only being used a chauffeur, with semi-healed Gunn in tow. It was obvious the big man was in pain, which was to be expected after under-going major surgery to stitch his stomach back together but he resisted help from either of his friends as he struggled out of Connor's battered saloon and into the Hotel.

'You can't just discharge yourself, Charles,' Lorne objected for a least the ninth time since leaving the hospital. 'Isn't that what the doctors are for? As well as the sewing and the injecting and… oh! Just talking about makes me feel squeamish.'

Gunn sank himself onto the round sofa, his hand clutching his fresh wound. 'I don't do well in hospitals, okay? Sitting around all day in bed getting sponge baths, not my style.'

'I don't know about you, but it sounds okay to me,' Connor said, sitting himself on the counter.

'You didn't see the nurse I got loaded with. Man she was a dog!' He shuddered at the memory. 'Not to mention old enough to be my grandmother!'

'But still are you sure you're not just going to drop dead in front of us?' Lorne asked dubiously.

'Nah, I'll be fine just gotta keep off the demon killing for a while, case I busted some stitches,' Gunn stood up gingerly and made for the stairs. 'My room's still cool, right?'

'Yeah, everything seems to be back the way it was,' Lorne answered. 'Courtesy of the Wolfram and Hart maid service.'

'Creepy.'

Angel knew why they called it the Waiting Room. The long narrow room, complete rows of empty, uncomfortable-looking chairs, was clinically white exactly like a hospital waiting room. He shuddered at the overall creepiness of it.

'Talk about picking an obvious name,' Spike muttered, voicing Angel's thoughts which in itself was weird enough.

'Is this it?' Wesley asked Rebecca.

She shrugged. 'Looks like it. I don't know I've never been here before.'

Angel stared at her hard. 'What? I thought the Oracles said you knew what you were doing?'

'They said I knew what I had to do, they never implied that I was expert at it,' she answered, briskly.

Spike noticed Illyria drifting away and ran after her. 'Hey, Blueberry. Where do you think you're going, Illyria?'

'We wished to seek information, do we not?' She said innocently. 'I suggest we go to the desk marked information.' She pointed to the other side of the immensely long room. In the distance they noticed a small, office desk with the words INFORMATION marked in blue across the front. Angel noticed that beneath it the word was written in Mandarin, French, German and Arabic. Sitting at the desk was a young woman, her blonde head bowed over some papers, which she was scribbling over.

They all looked at each other before jogging towards the desk.

'Excuse me, miss. We…' Wesley trailed off as the girl raised her head.

'Bloody Hell!' Spike yelled.

Angel squinted at the woman in confusion. 'Anya…?'

The girl beamed at them from behind the desk and dropped her papers. She leapt up and literally danced round the table to wrap her arms around Spike. 'Spike! You have no idea how good it is to see you. Well, obviously I've seen you but to be seen back…'

She dropped Spike and moved on to grab Angel and Wesley in each arms. 'And you two! I know it's been a while since we last met but, Oh! This is just…'

Anya pushed the two confused me aside a flung her arms around a slightly stunned Rebecca. 'And you! I don't even know you but…' she gasped tearfully. 'And her, she's not even human.' She said pointing wildly at Illyria. 'But I am so happy to see you all!'

'Anya, what the bloody hell are you doing here?' Spike asked when he had finally regained the power of speech.

'I work here and dear Lord! Can I say Buffy had it easy at the Doublemeat Palace, this place is true Hell. Well, obviously not literally. Every day and night just breaking the news. Humans are so stupid, they're dead. Why can't they just except that? Instead it's all with the tears and the 'Please God, no!' There's only so much fake comfort a girl can offer. And, hey you're not dead…'

She looked at them strangely until Spike answered. 'Actually, love we're looking for someone.'

'Looking for someone? You don't look for someone in the Waiting Room? You wait in the Waiting Room, looking is just not the done thing.'

Rebecca looked at Anya and dug into her jeans pocket, drawing at the list again and studying it. 'Hey, are you Anya Jenkins?'

Anya frowned at her. 'Anya Emmanuella Christina Jenkins. And you are?'

Angel sighed frustrated. 'Don't tell me, Rebecca. She's on your list.'

'What list?' Anya asked.

'I have a list of all the people needed to stop the final apocalypse,' Rebecca explained. 'Well done, you made it.'

'Well, it's hardly surprising that I'm on your list. After all I did die in an attempt to save the world.'

'Does that mean the demon comes with us?' Illyria asked languidly.

Angel shrugged. 'Guess it does.'

'Well then can we please postpone this conversation until after we have slaughtered those creatures?'

They all turned around to see what had caught Illyria's attention. Four massively hairy dogs the size of large men running on all fours. The only thing visible beneath the shaggy, dark fur where the gleaming teeth and the menacingly long canines dripping with unprecedented amounts of yellowish saliva. The sight of them made Angel shudder and looking at everyone else's reaction they felt similarly.

'Oh, no!' Anya groaned. 'It's the hounds. They're on loan from one of the lower Hell dimensions.'

'How do we kill them?' Angel asked, throwing back his coat to reveal a hurling axe.

'Oh, we'll first you need a twice blessed sage boiled on the full moon and… And how the Hell do you think you kill them?'

Angel shrugged. 'I just thought maybe there was a special way…'

The hounds started to advance, a hungry look in their eyes. Thank goodness the room was so long or else they wouldn't have time to draw their weapons. Wesley held an axe, which had been hanging from her belt and Rebecca, reached inside her coat to draw out two long knives. Spike, like Illyria saw no need for weapons when your fist would do the job just fine, pushed Anya behind him protectively.

'Stay back, love.'

Anya jumped behind her desk again as if that would offer some sort of protection from the rabid animals. 'You don't need to tell me twice.'

The hounds began circling them languidly in a predatory fashion but Angel really didn't have time for that sort of pre-slaughter foreplay and decided to make the first move by hurling his axe, which spun several times through the air with an elegant swish and lodged itself in the skull of the nearest opponent.

The other hounds did a comical double take as they looked from their fallen fellow to Angel and back again before launching themselves at the small pack of humans.

Angel dodged their first one with those great enhanced, vampire reflexes and rolled towards his axe which he yanked out of the fallen hound's broken skull. Another through itself at Spike who fell flat on his back, the creature began clawing at his face, Spike laughed at the creature. 'Your just like a dog aren't you? A huge, overactive, hyena-like dog?' But when the 'dog's' claws strayed a little to close to his face, drawing a line of blood down his hollow cheek he was quick to twist the creature's neck. Illyria too preferred that kind of hands on violence and thrust her fist through another's skull.

On Angel's signal, Wesley swung his axe into the neck of the nearest creature, embedding the blade in it's flesh. It was almost impossible to completely decapitate one of these hounds, everything about them was so tough but the animal fell to the floor all the same. In his peripheral vision he was vaguely aware of Rebecca more than holding her own with bloodied knives. Judging by this evidence and her performance against Wolfram and Hart's army she was definitely capable when it came to killing it was possible she even had supernatural powers.

It was while Wesley was holding this thought, one of the last surviving hounds threw itself at him, pinning him to the desk. Rebecca saw his predicament, his axe was several feet away and grabbed the hounds hairy head and slide her knife across its exposed neck. She jumped out if the way as the hound gurgled slightly before falling to the floor, its throat in bloody tatters and a switchblade protruding from its stomach.

Wesley stood himself up an easily. His black shirt was stained with the blood of the hound and his own pouring sluggishly out of a shoulder wound.

'Are you alright?' Rebecca asked cautiously.

Wesley stepped forward more steadily and pulled his knife out of the animal and whipped the blood off on its own fur. 'Yes, I think I'll be fine. Thank you.'

Spike stepped around the desk to pick Anya up. 'You alright love?'

She got to her feet a little shaken. 'Wow, that's the most action I've had in months. You guys really know how to shake things up.'

Angel looked around the blank room, noticing the lack of doors. 'Anya, how do we get out of here?'

But Anya was already gone to the wall nearest to them and pulling it away to reveal a door painted white to blend in with the neo-minimalist décor. 'This way. I'm almost certain you'll find your friend here.'

'Almost certain?'

'Look, Tracy. I'm sorry.'

Tracy wasn't impressed. Connor could hear his girlfriends draw out sight down the crackly line of his cell. 'Twice in a row, Connor! What is so damn important?'

Connor didn't know how to explain. He wasn't really doing anything, just hanging round the Hyperion Hotel waiting for Angel to come back with this Lindsey guy but still he didn't feel able to take Tracey out. It would be fun; it was always fun with Tracey. They would go out bowling maybe, ice skating, buy some tacos by the pier but it would be too…normal. Without even realizing it Connor had grown use to the excitement and danger surrounding Angel and his friends.

'Nothing, just family stuff.' He'd used that excuse before and knew she didn't believe him. She probably thought he was seeing someone else but he couldn't for the life of him think of a different excuse.

From the distant recesses of the hotel he heard a thump and his head instantly jerked up in the direction of the noise. 'Hey, Tracy. I've got to go, I'll call you later.'

He could he hear her starting to protest but he simply hung up knowing he would pay for it later. He padded up the garden steps with the graceful silence gifted to only the devil spawn of two vampires. He peered around the door and saw the lobby suddenly occupied with lots of armed people. Silently, he slid a mounted hurling axe from its position on the wall and, remaining in the shadows approached the people.

The people, of which there seemed about half a dozen silently split up. A man and two women ran slightly up the stairs to the upper levels. Connor hoped that Gunn and Lorne were aware of what was going on as there was no way to warn them. Two other men slipped into the office.

Connor too slid from his position behind a pillar only to be confronted by a girl, slightly younger than him, soft brown hair swept up in a high pony tale, pink lip gloss daubing her lips, looking entirely unthreatening. That is, if he ignored the crossbow pointed at his throat.

And he could only think of one thing to say. 'Can I help you?'


	4. Chapter 4

CHAPTER FOUR

They followed Anya through the invisible door only to be faced with more of the same, long, white, wholly impersonal corridors stretching on into an entirely uncertain horizon. And the worst thing about this corridor was its apparent emptiness. No Lindsey to be seen.

But only for a moment. First it was only a faint a flicker of a man shaped cloud before them which painfully slowly began to solidify into the unmistakable form of Lindsey McDonald.

Angel struggled for words. 'What the Hell?'

'I think that phrase is slightly in appropriate here, Angel,' Anya quickly rebuked.

'Or more apt than ever,' Wesley muttered.

'Angel… What are you doing?' Death hadn't treated Lindsey well. He was dressed in the clothes he died in, still soaked in his own blood (they obviously didn't believe in laundry here) with deep, tired circles under his eyes. He blinked at them, bewildered.

'Rescuing you. Again. I swear to God Lindsey this is the last time I save your ass.'

'What do you mean 'save my ass'?' Lindsey yelled, understandably angry when faced with the guy who had led to his murder. Not an opportunity many people get to experience. 'You're the bastard who put me here in the first place!'

His rant came to an abrupt stop when he saw Illyria begin to circle him like some big, blue bird of prey. 'This dimension is truly one of great power. To be able to call beings forth like that. But I still see the agony facing the creatures here.'

Lindsey backed away from the goddess. 'Hey, back off Smurfette.'

Spike frowned. 'What do you mean agony? It's the Waiting Room, not Hell. It can't be that bad, despite the serious lack of colour.'

'Oh, it's all with the agony here,' Anya answered, flippantly. 'You may not think it but working the Otherworld Information Bureau is like winning the 20 mil lottery jackpot, when all the numbers go up to infinity.'

Angel frowned at her. The ex-demon reminded him of Cordelia when he first met her in Sunnydale, blunt and forthright. Well, at least that showed that Xander Harris was consistent in his pick of women. 'What are you talking about?'

'They keep the people here in suspended animation,' Rebecca answered and continued when she saw Angel and Spike's bemused faces. 'Think of it as a giant filing cabinet. Lindsey, his soul, essence, consciousness, whatever you want to call it has been trapped in a tiny little metaphysical box unable to escape.'

Lindsey bowed his head as he spoke, pushing false bravado into his voice. 'Yeah, its tough being locked in a box 23 hours a day, not being able to move, sleep or talk. And I don't know if you quite realise the time differences from dimension to dimension. So, while it's been, what? A long weekend for you I've been here up to three months and I can tell you it sure feels a lot longer than that.'

Angel shifted from foot to foot, uncomfortably. As a general rule Angel refrained from feeling any sort of sympathy towards Lindsey but right now he was finding that difficult as he thought back to his own time locked in a box. 'I can empathise.'

'Yeah,' Lindsey laughed bitterly. 'I heard you spent your summer vacation at the bottom of the ocean once. How'd that work out for you, buddy?'

'You said 23 hours,' Wesley asked with intellectual interest. 'How do you spend the 24th?'

'Ah, that's the only thing that keeps this place from being classified as a Hell dimension. That's the hour when all the people who died that day are sucked up here…'

'So, the rest of the time all these ghosties are hovering round the mortal plain?' Spike asked.

Angel shoved his hands deep into his pockets as he rolled his eyes, impatiently. 'Yeah, nice but can we please get out of here. 'Cause I'd feel a lot more comfortable discussing all this, the other side of death.'

Spike glanced around the empty room only to see that the door through which they had entered had completely disappeared. 'Well, how the bloody Hell do you suggest we do that, Rambo? Because in case you hadn't noticed there's no sodding door!'

Angel span around, panic plastered on his face. 'Damn it!' He rounded on Rebecca who was looking equally uncomfortable. 'Please tell me you have some sort of counter-spell…'

Before Rebecca could answer and before Angel could begin yelling in hopeless frustration they were all bowled over by the deep, echoing trumpeting of a giant, unseen claxon. This was followed by a sudden feeling of nausea as the world began to dissolve just as rapidly as before.

Vision settling but nausea remaining they each saw that they had returned to that same spot behind Anya's desk in the Waiting Room. The only difference this time round was the sudden influx in occupants. Thousands upon thousands of people in various states of assembly and transparency had surged upon the room like fish on a low tide.

'The people you can walk through are the ones that just died. The ones that are solid like Lindsey have been here a while,' Anya explained.

It was lucky for Rebecca that most of them were of the wispy, barely there variety because while the others stood gawping at the sheer magnitude of ghost congregated before them, she simply marched right through them, ignoring the squawks of protests from the dead populace.

Angel dashed after her. 'Where are you going?'

'Getting out of here,' she answered shrugging him off.

'And how do you suggest we do that?' He asked sceptically.

She nodded in indication. 'The same way they're getting in.'

Either Angel was going blind in his old age or his time at Wolfram and Hart had done something to his observational skills, but he had somehow failed to notice the presence of the big swirly portal from which the ghost were streaming out of. 'Right, big swirly portal.'

'Lindsey! Lindsey!'

The gang turned around to see a ratty faced little red headed man running towards them. According Anya's explaination his corporeal state meant that he had been here at least as long as Lindsey had.

Lindsey turned to Owen with a roll of his eyes. Jesus, this guy was getting annoying. Paranoid ramblings were one thing but sabotaging his one chance at escape was something entirely different. 'What the Hell do you want Owen?'

'Where you going Lindsey?' Owen asked or more accurately whined.

'Getting out of this Hell hole, Owen,' Lindsey answered almost sympathetically. Owen wasn't coming with him, he knew that. Owen had died because it was his time to die, in the messed up scheme of things that was supposed to happen. But he also knew with absolute certainty that it had not been his time to die, there was more for him. Angel's presence alone proved that fact. 'I'm getting out and I'm not coming back, not for a long time.'

Owen looked around, slightly bemused. 'Defying the Man, cool. Can I come?'

Lindsey glanced back to the portal, Angel and the gang essembled, waiting for him to make his move, make the hard decision. 'No,' he said with weight. 'No, you can't Owen. Your dead and that's the way it's supposed to be. I'm sorry.'

Owen's lip trembled and Lindsey could see his words burying into the heart of him. This time, finally reality had hit Owen Swade and it hit him as hard as the bus which had killed him. 'But...I...Lindsey please, I... I just, I just want... I want to see my mom again. I want to tell her..'

'Sorry, Owen.' Lindsey turned away from him and that action alone was harder than anything he had done while he was alive.

He walked the few paces to Angel who looked at him in an almost brotherly manner. It reminded Lindsey of the way Holland Manners had looked at him when he was young and he looked up to him like a father. 'You ready to go?'

Lindsey only nodded as he followed the others through the portal and into his second chance, the sound of Owen screaming behind him.

Buffy? The name was seemed familiar to Connor. Angel must have mentioned it, though Connor didn't know if it was in this life or the other. God, this thing was confusing. Wasn't she that Slayer Rebecca had been talking about?

The other girl was Faith. That was definitely a part of his other life. Memories of her were mostly of the Slayer kicking his ass around the hotel along with a few strange, inappropriately erotic dreams. Well, what teenage boy wouldn't get turned on by a hot warrior chick in leather pants? But the memories of past wet dreams weren't the weirdest thing about this encounter, the strange bit was that when she looked at him there was no recognition, she was just blank. Angel had explained to him, all of his people in L.A would remember him because they had been in the area where the Window had been smashed but anyone else he may have met would have no recollection of him ever existing.

'Can you lower the crossbow a bit,' Connor said indignantly, turning his attention to the younger girl. 'It's making me a bit edgy.'

'Maybe edgy's the way we like you,' glowered Buffy. 'Until you start talking of course.'

Connor knew he could probably take the little girl with crossbow and the two guys to the left but two slayers that was pushing even his skills. 'Talk? About what, the weather? You gotta pick a topic.'

'Angel.' She answered simply, with meaning and force.

Connor shrugged in what he hoped was a laid-back but uncooperative fashion. 'He's out. Can I take a message?'

'Come on, Bitesize. Don't mess me about.' It was Faith who spoke next, completely mastering the look of languid cool that he was struggling with. 'You just tell me where he is and we don't whoop you ass.'

Bitsize? That pissed him off. He wasn't even that short and he was at least three years older than the kid with the crossbow. He felt old Connor seeping through, crap. Not a great time to loose his cool but still couldn't hurt tos show off a little bit. 'I'd really like to see you try.'

Faster than very fast lightening he feinted to the left, tackling the girl to the ground as gently as

he could. He didn't really want to hurt her, just scare them a bit, kicking the croosbow out of her hands. In one swift movememt he swung onto his feet again and, wanting to avoid confrontation with the two girls somersaulted onto the counter and from his new, higher position managed to kick the black man in the shoulder before reaching down and throwing the bearded pirate into the opposite wall.

He looked down at the two slayers with a smug grin. The blonde had run to help the girl to her feet, Faith simply glared. Unfortunately for Connor he hadn't quite anticipated the crossbow bolt flying towards him and although he had just enough time to lunge out of the way he did end up falling off the counter landing on his backside in a stupendously comic fashion.

'What the Hell is going on down here?' Everyone's head turned to glance up at Charles Gunn looking down on the whole fiasco. 'Connor?'

'Yo, G-man!' Faith called. 'Come one and get yourself down here.'

Gunn blinked at her once, twice before breaking into a broad grin. 'Faith?' He said before running down the stairs two at a time to greet them.

'The one and only,' Faith said as Gunn wrapped her in a big bear hug that lefted her off her feet. 'Good to see you too Gunn. But what's up with the new secretary? And I thought Cordelia was difficult with the customer relations.'

'Oh, that's Connor. He's only been with us a few days. You gonna introduce me to your crew?'

'It ain't mine. It's B's.' She indicated the blonde girl who eyed up Gunn suspiciously. 'This Dawn,' the girl. 'Xander,' Blackbeard wannabe. 'And my boy Robin.'

Gunn gave them all a brusque nod. 'So what you doing here? You're a bit late for the apocolpse, been and gone.'

'We're just checking up on things,' Buffy interjected. 'Making sure Angelus hasn't made an unwelcome comeback.'

Gunn eyed her guardedly 'Why would you think that?'

Buffy shrugged 'I don't know. Maybe because of the evil law firm he's running.'

'Well, like I told you, you're a bit late we already took them down and we've all still got souls.' Gunn folded his arms across his chest eying up the little blonde woman who stood at least a foot below him.

'Where's Wesley?' Faith asked, breaking up the staring contest.

Gunn frowned. 'Wesley? He's with Angel, why?'

'That's why we're here,' said Faith's 'boy', Robin. His voice was deep and he imprinted an air of authority on Gunn, he reminded Gunn of one of the cooler teachers at school. 'Faith had a dream, a recurring dream actually that Wesley, her Watcher was dying.'

'But he's okay, right?' the Slayer persisted eagerly. 'No deaths here right?'

'Not recently.'

'What do you mean, not re…'

But before Faith could continue the door burst open and in strode the rest of the gang. Angel looked around. He couldn't remember when the Hotel had ever been this full, I mean not counting vampires or demons of squishy underworld things. It was strange and a little bit claustrophobic.

'Bloody Hell…'

But just before he could reproach Spike, it was almost becoming a reflex, Angel realised that it was Rebecca who had swore. It was little things like that which made him realise that it was Fred or Cordy standing behind him. But it was Buffy who was looking furious.

'Spike,' she said grimly. Not astounded. Not tearful. Grim.

'Shit,' Spike gasped as he tried to duck out but Angel caught him by the back of his jacket.

'No way, Blondie Bear if you're here there's a slim chance that she won't beat me to death.'

'What?' cried Xander. 'Spike's alive. I mean undead and with Angel. And Buffy knew?'

Xander's confusion was forcefully shoved aside when Anya squealed 'Xander!' before rushing down the stairs a nearly bowling his wilting body over.

'Oh, my God Xander you grew facial hair that is so gross!'

Everyone stared at them both completely flabbergasted, non more so than Xander.

'Um…sorry' he muttered completely lost for words.

Faith turned back to Angel. 'What did everyone come back from the dead?'

'Oh, this is awkward,' Wesley muttered.

'Who are these people?' Illyria demanded to no one in particular. 'Their presence confuses me.'

'You and me both,' muttered Rebecca before saying a bit louder, 'Um…Angel, Lindsey a bit worn out maybe I should take him upstairs. I really, really don't want to get in the way.'

Angel waved her away. 'Whatever.'

So Rebecca, Lindsey's arm draped round her shoulder dashed up the stairs as quick as she could supporting the semi-conscious man.

'Hey, was that just Lindsey?' Faith stared after them incredulously. 'Lindsey, evil lawyer Lindsey?' Angel looked down at the half dozen eyes all staring at him questioningly and, in an act of despair, simply buried his face in his hands.


	5. Chapter 5

'What do you think's going on down there?' Lindsey asked as he lay down in one of the smaller hotel rooms. Both he and Rebecca were acutely aware of the shouting downstairs as old 'friends' caught up.

'I don't know but I do know that I do not want to get caught up in the middle of it,' she answered as Lindsey stripped off his bloodstained shirt. 'You should keep that,' she said nodding at the shirt. 'As a sort of souvenir.'

'A souvenir of what?'

'You know dying, coming back.' She shrugged. 'Not a lot of people do that and keep their shirt.'

Lindsey didn't answer but folded his shirt up anyway. She turned to leave, guessing that maybe he didn't want to talk especially with her, the strange new girl; she was getting a lot of that. People seemed to be a little apprehensive of her, that or they really didn't want her around.

'Do you know what happened to Eve?' He asked quietly. 'Is she dead?'

Rebecca turned back to him. He looked a little bit small and a little bit lost. Vulnerable. Well, she thought wouldn't you? Complete at the mercy of the guy who hated you so much he'd had you killed. That look made her soften towards him slightly.

'I don't know who she is, sorry.' And she really was.

'It doesn't matter,' he said evenly. 'Hey, could you do me a favour?'

'What?' she asked warily.

'Do you have a pen?'

'Um…' She patted down her coat pockets before drawing out a chewed up biro. 'Yep.'

'Paper?' She simply raised an eyebrow. 'What do I look like, a stationary store?'

He half smiled. 'Fine. Give me your hand.'

Gingerly she extended her left hand and taking the pen he scribbled an address on the back of it. The pen tickled as his spiky handwriting danced over it. 'That's my apartment,' he said as he wrote. 'There's a key in the post box under the name of Doyle. Get me some stuff, clothes whatever and my wallet and bring it back here. No offence but I want to get out of here as quickly as possible.'

Rebecca looked down at her hand. The address wasn't far away, a half hours walk maybe and she wasn't put off by the area of town it was in. 'Why should I do this for you? Technically I'm on Angel's side and technically he still hates you.'

'Well, technically you need me otherwise we wouldn't have taken that little interdimensional trip,' he answered. 'Besides you don't know me and I'm taking advantage of that fact before you do get to know me and realise what a loser I am.'

Rebecca shook her head despairingly. 'What? Is that supposed to get you the sympathy vote?' He just looked at her and not only did she realise that his grey eyes were very nice but that she did feel a little bit sympathetic towards him. Maybe it was the feeling that they had in common. The feeling that they didn't belong here and definitely weren't wanted. 'Okay, I'll see what I can do.'

'So these dreams?' Wes asked, interestedly. 'Were they Slayer dreams?'

Wes and Faith sat beside each other in Angel's office. The man himself had since disappeared upstairs for what they assumed to be an excessive brooding festival whilst the reunited couples had drifted away to various corners of the hotel to sort out there own excessively complicated issues. Gunn and Connor had the charge of keeping Dawn amused while her sister was presumably, murdering Spike. She seemed quite happy to exchange stories with the two about various apocalypses as well as Italian college anecdotes. Robin Wood, unfortunately, would not be so easily distracted. Much to Wesley's annoyance he had stuck to Faith like a gruff German shepherd, eying Wesley up suspiciously and quite brazenly. He was here now lounging in the desk chair when all Wes wanted was a moment alone with Faith.

'Well, Slayer dreams tend to be you know prophetic, right?' Faith answered. 'And mine turned out to by a load of bull so I'm guessing no.'

Wesley pondered over telling her how close to the truth her dreams were. He decided against it. Things like that only led to lengthy explanations which inevitably resulted in confusion.

He glanced sideways at his Slayer who sat swinging her Doc Martens. He couldn't pretend not to be touched at how worried she had been about him, it made a refreshing change from the days when she had hated him for abandoning her and he had hated himself even more for failing her. If those days spent chasing Angelus around L.A had taught him anything it was that he could trust Faith.

'You're a little young to be her Watcher aren't you?' Robin interjected, breaking their thoughtful silence. 'From my experience Watchers, at least active ones tended to be a little more… mature.'

Wesley turned on the man. He could see why Faith may have fallen for him. He was conventional enough to offer her some conflict but with enough of the subtly eccentric to make them seem compatible. 'And how did you become such a font of Slayer lore? If you don't mind me asking.'

'Robin's mom was a Slayer,' Faith answered for him. 'Nikki Wood back in 1970-whatever.'

'Nikki Wood?' Wesley asked with a raised eyebrow. 'The same Nikki Wood that Spike brutally murdered and then stripped the coat off? You make unusual friends, Robin.'

Robin created his teeth as Wes struck a particularly raw nerve. 'Spike and I are not friends.'

'Blondie Bear's charms haven't quite won him over yet,' Faith smiled, obviously treating the situation a little bit lighter than her boyfriend. 'Weird him coming back to life and all. Not to mention Anya.'

'And Lindsey,' Wes muttered.

'Yeah, I thought it was Lindsey McDonald I saw. It's been a while since we last had a chance to catch up.'

'That's where we just came from, another dimension after Angel had Lorne murder him.' He shook his head despairingly at Faith's questioning look. 'Don't ask me why, it's completely Rebecca's domain.'

'And who's this Rebecca chick then?' Faith asked.

Wesley sighed. 'I honestly don't know.'

Xander looked at Anya in complete amazement. It had been at least twenty minutes since that wave of shock had first engulfed him but he still couldn't quite his head around it. She's alive. Things could go back to normal; this last year could just be a bad dream. A horrific, not to mention prolonged nightmare. He wanted to touch her just to check, just to make certain that this wasn't just some incredibly insensitive trick his mind was playing, but he couldn't. His hands were stuck to his sides, rigid unable to even brush his fingers over the pale skin of her forearm.

Anya craned her neck at him, sensitive to his predicament. 'Sensitive' that's not a word most people would associate with Anya Jenkins. Most people knew her to be blunt and forthcoming and embarrassingly frank especially when it came to sex and that was one of the little reasons that explained his love for her. But, Xander also knew that she was kind and caring and if she wanted to be, completely empathic.

'Xander, what's the matter?'

He shook his head in attempt to clear his thoughts and to maybe lodge himself more firmly into the real world. 'I...I,' he took a deeper breath. 'Can I touch you?'

The frown corrugating her forehead instantly ironed out as she favoured him with a smile. A smile that was too real to be a dream. 'I'm not going to pretend that's not a strange request but...'

Xander brought his hand up to caress the side of her face. Just slowly, tentatively. He was reassured by the familiar contours of her cheek. Anya reached up to pull his hand away. 'You don't have to be so chaste. You know I won't go in for that sort of nonsense. A kiss or even something more is entirely welcome.'

Xander smiled. For the first time in just under a year his face burst into a proper, broad grin. One that, a long time ago, back in Sunnydale had seemed so ordinary and everyday. Anya was back and she was far from ordinary.

'You don't seem surprised to see me.'

Spike couldn't think of anything else to say and the silence was too painful to continue. After Angel had made his hasty exit (he could at least have had the decency to stay and help him out, the tosser) Spike and Buffy had gone out into the courtyard with the attention to talk calmly about the whole messed up situation. However, talking, up until this point had been minimal.

'Did Andrew tell you?'

'What?'

God, she wouldn't even look at him, that hurt. That hurt a lot though even Spike couldn't go as far as to say he didn't deserve it.

'That I was you know… alive well, not alive haven't been alive in a while but alive in the sense that I…'

'Why didn't you tell me before?' she asked. She sounded vulnerable like she was about to cry. Spike wanted to reach over and hug her so much that the effort of keeping his arms from reaching out physically hurt. 'Preferably when you first wound up here. I know you were probably busy helping Angel out with his evil law firm but you could've sent me a memo. That's what you business guys do, right? Send memos.'

'I wanted to, love. Not the memo part I was goin' to take a jump across the pond, come visit you or at least give you a call.'

'So what happened? Big case come up? Baby-eating demon need defending?'

'Will you drop the sarcasm!' That came out harsher than he intended. He made a conscious effort to soften his voice as he continued. 'You want to know the truth? As soon as I got all coporealised I had every intention of jumping on the next plane out of this Hell hole. I imagined exactly how it was going to be when I turned up on your door step and how pleased you and Dawn would be and well… You don't need to hear the rest of that fantasy just that ended in 'happily ever after'.'

'Why didn't you!' Buffy stood up now. She was displaying all the usual signs of anger raised voice, over-exaggerated gestures, forceful emphasis on the beginning of words. Soon she was going to start hitting him, that's where conversations of this sort usually ended up. So much for talking like adults.

'Well.' Spike attempted to explain something even he wasn't sure of himself. 'Something came up, of the world saving variety, so I put it off. And then something else came up and something else, you know how it is with Angel, can't keep himself out of trouble, stupid prat. Then when I finally do get myself over to Italy I find you swaning about with the bloody Immortal, I thought you had taste, pet!'

'Oh,' Buffy's mouth opened and closed like an oxygen-starved goldfish. 'That was just sex!' she blurted out.

Spike chuckled. 'I can tell you now, love that doesn't make it any better.'

'Don't you dare try to put this on me!' She cried defensively. 'You're in the wrong!'

She took a deep breath and turned to look at him. And when she did he saw that her green eyes were bright with tears. 'Can't we just, you know talk. Have a proper conversation about this like adults?'

Spike smirked and reached into the dark recesses of his jacket for a cigarette. 'We never were great at the talking part. It's too… ordinary, too still. With us it was always either sex or kicking each other up and down Main Street. Nothing as moderate as talking. We're too extreme. That's why we never had anything had real.'

Buffy sank back down. 'What do you mean 'not real'? I told you... I told you... You really didn't believe me?'

Spike shrugged in a non-committal way. 'I guess down there in the Hellmouth, part of me wanted to believe but the more I got to think about it the more I realised... I don't care what you say Slayer, telling someone you love them when their just about to burst into a painful ball of flame is obviously a sympathy thing.'

'Not to me!' Buffy yelled jumping up once more. Her eyes were blazing with that familiar anger. 'You know what? There's no point talking to you when you're like this. You sit there spouting all this crap about what I feel and what I think but if you hate me being here so much then why the Hell did you call me?'

Angel lay staring at the cracked ceiling above him. It had definitely been a hectic few days. He was very aware of Lindsey resting in the room two doors down, it was strange to think that an hour ago he had been dead, Anya too and now, a hop, skip and a jump through one swirly portal and they were alive again. Come to think of it, Buffy had died too and Spike, not to mention himself. What did that mean? Did death no longer hold any value? Dying used to seem so final but now it seemed that he had it in his power to reverse it. And if he had all this power over life and death than what excuse did he have to just give up on Cordelia?

'I said what you doing?'

He looked up to see Buffy in the door way. Buffy, his salvation, his only tie to the universe. He looked at her there standing in the door way arms folded, familiar pout and it hit him. He had been longing for her so long that he hadn't even noticed when he stopped wanting her.

'You know, thinking, brooding. It's what I do. Kind of a trademark.'

She took a few assured steps into the room as Angel sat up. 'I thought your trademark was the forehead.' She grinned apologetically. 'Sorry, I've spent too much time with Spike.'

'Not recently,' Angel pointed out.

'True.' They sat in silence for a few moments. 'So, what do we do now?'

Angel didn't look at her, preferring to examine a hole in the bed sheets. 'Well, I guess you go back to what ever it was you and your Scoobies were doing. Preferably taking Spike and Anya with you and…'

'He's not a dog,' Buffy blurted out.

'What?'

'Spike. He's not a dog, despite the name. I can't just take him, not unless he wants to be… you know taken.'

Angel raised an eyebrow. 'There's a double entendre that's just dying to be abused but I am man enough just to let that slip by.'

Buffy looked at him as if he has just sprouted horns. 'Was that just humour? I thought I heard humour there but obviously I was seriously mistaken the Angel I know doesn't do humour. Misery, yes. Humour, no.'

'I'm not the Angel you know,' he stated simply. 'I'm just a barrel of laughs these days. Ask anyone.'

'That's why I came up to talk.'

'About my sense of humour?' Angel asked. 'Because really it's not that bad. Is it?'

Buffy giggled slightly as she sat down beside him. 'No, Spike. I came to talk to you about Spike. I was thinking in around about way; remember I'm still jet lag girl.'

'What about Spike? Because I'm really not the one you should be asking for advise about your love life. It's just awkward.'

Buffy ignored the jab this time. He could see her slipping into business mode and wondered if it was so visible when he did it. 'Last week I got a call from Spike, at least I thought it was Spike only it turns out he doesn't know a thing about it. Now, despite his less than perfect track record I'm inclined to believe him this time. So, now I'm thinking that someone wanted me to come to L.A and they used Spike to get me here.'

'What do you want me to do about it?' Angel asked sullenly.

'I want you to stop sulking and get downstairs and be a leader. You have a team and responsibilities to them and me. Now, there's something going on that's just screaming sinister at me. You're a detective, aren't you?'

'You know I never was much good at the whole detecting...'

'So, detect already and find out what and who's going on.'


	6. Chapter 6

'This can't be a coincidence.' Angel strode down the stairs bristling in anger.

'What can't?' Buffy asked trotting along behind him. As soon as she had mentioned the weird fake phone call he had jumped up, filled with a sudden bolt of electric anger. She wasn't sure who the anger was directed at but it gave him purpose.

He didn't answer. 'Wesley,' he called as he entered the lobby.

Wesley wandered out of the office following his conference with Faith. 'Yes?' He asked absently.

'Where's Rebecca?'

'She went out I think… About half an hour ago.'

Angel kicked the counter in frustration. 'And why the Hell didn't you stop her?'

Wesley frowned glancing from Angel to Buffy and back. 'Because I wasn't aware that she was our prisoner or that I was her jailer.'

Angel glanced around the room, realising it was empty. 'Where is everyone?'

'Gunn and Connor took Dawn out, Xander and Anya are using one of the rooms to… catch up and I believe Lorne is still drunk.'

'Where's Spike?' Buffy asked anxiously. Things had been more than awkward between them for obvious reasons and she didn't like to think of his alone with time to think. Since he had got his soul he had been more inclined to deep thought, some might say brooding. Maybe there was some correlation between the two?

Wesley began rearranging books on the shelf behind him. 'He and Illyria are in the basement. He felt a need to hit something. Now what's all this business about Rebecca?'

'I think she's evil,' Angel stated simply.

'What's this about evil?' Faith asked as she strolled out of the office with Robin at her heels. 'Can we kick its ass? Because if so I'm in.'

'When we find her,' Angel muttered.

'Angel, what makes you think she has anything to do with Spike's phone call?' Buffy asked fairly.

Angel shook his head in an attempt to shake off the tirade of questions he was facing. Did people always question him this much? Because he seemed to remember a time when people just did what he said. Maybe that was just evil lawyers because he was sure Wesley at least had never been complacent. 'I don't know. There's no particular reason, she just seems... I don't think we should trust her and I need you guys to just accept that. You've got to admit she has been exactly Miss Show 'n' Tell.'

Wesley was the first to nod in agreement. 'You're right. We need to stand together on this. Evil or not, there are still some questions that need addressing.'

'What do you suggest we do first?' Robin interjected. Angel glanced at him. He had barely noticed the tall stranger before.

'I suggest we find the bitch and...'

Everyone turned as Rebecca slammed the door behind her and a half dozen pair of eyes fell on her. They watched as she let the bag, which she held slung over her shoulder sink to the floor and they watched as she descended the few steps towards them.

'Do we have a problem?' She asked evenly in a tone which only served to stoke Angel's unexplainable anger.

'Yeah, 'we' do,' he answered. He straightened himself, using those few extra inches of height which could make him seem entirely aggressive. 'You.'

He watched as her forehead folded into a false frown. 'What have I done now?'

'I don't know, why don't you tell us?' Angel answered in a tone that matched hers for false calm. 'Because I've had about as much of this cryptic crap as I can take.'

'I told you,' she persevered. 'I was sent by the Powers.'

'And we're supposed to believe you?' The gang turned to see Spike and Illyria return from the basement. Spike was bristling with anger, obviously having heard the whole conversation. ''Cause your mate Lindsey's already tried to pull that one over not to long ago so forgive us for being a little skittish around you.'

'Speaking of Lindsey.' Rebecca nodded to the bag, ignoring Spike's point.

' Illyria,' Angel ordered. 'Make sure the bastard gets out of my home as quickly as possible. Feel free to offer him a little encouragement.'

Illyria looked about to argue before being reprimanded by a biting stare from Wesley. With icy cool she skulked past Rebecca.

'So,' Rebecca continued once the Goddess had disappeared up the stairs. 'What's this little intervention in aid of?'

'A phone call,' Buffy replied. 'Or rather not. A phone call that never happened.'

Lindsey jerked awake when Illyria threw down the bag. He hadn't meant to fall asleep. He was in the home of a man he couldn't trust out numbered a lot to one, never a good place to take a nap. But then again who could help resting their eyes for a moment after the time he'd had.

'Oh, it's you, Smurfette.' Lindsey glanced down at the bag. 'Those my things?'

The Goddess didn't answer which Lindsey found, understandably off-putting. Stretching, he rolled out of the bed to pull out a set of clothes from the hurriedly packed bag. He slipped on a pale blue shirt but stopped as his hands slid to the button of his pants. 'You gonna watch the show, Blue? Because I'm not entirely comfortable with that.'

Illyria folded her arms over her leather clad chest. 'Angel says I am to offer you some encouragement if you linger in his home any longer.'

'Oh, I don't need any encouragement. The quicker I'm out of her, the quicker I can start using my second chance.'

Angel grabbed Rebecca by the shoulder pushing her into the sofa. The others stood around taking advantage of her lower position.

'Take a seat, Rebecca,' Wesley added ironically.

Rebecca flashed him an unappreciative smirk as she settled herself on the seat.

'So spill,' continued Buffy. 'Who exactly are you?'

Angel however tried a more direct approach. Jumping in before she was allowed to spout the same old 'Powers that Be' crap he said in a not unthreatening tone, 'Frankly I don't care if you're Chow Yun Fat. I'm way more interested in asking what you are.'

Rebecca blinked once or twice. 'Sorry, but what is that supposed to mean...'

'The magic you used on Wesley, pretty impressive wouldn't you say?'

'And you're not exactly the poster child for damsel when it comes to holding your own in a scrap,' Spike added picking up on Angel's train of thought. 'You don't smell like any demon I've ever come across but then I can't say I haven't been fooled before. Either way you aren't completely human.'

'But I am!' Rebecca protested. 'Well, sort of... I'm not sure.'

Wesley folded his arms as he glared down at her. 'Are we getting close to an admission?'

'Okay, okay.' Rebecca sprung to her feet ignore the warning growl drifting from deep in Angel's throat. 'You want to know what I am? Fine. I'm a Slayer. A not so unique Chosen One.'

There was a moment of silence as everyone stared at the girl. All focus was so fixed on Rebecca that no one noticed Lindsey, closely followed by Illyria descend the stairs.

'I can see you're busy,' Lindsey said as he passed through the door. 'So let's just leave the goodbyes short otherwise it just gets tacky. So bye, don't you freaks ever come near me again.'

'Whatever,' Angel waved him off, not sparing the man a moments thought.

Spike was the first to recover after Rebecca's revelation. 'Pull the other one, love,' he laughed uncertainly.

'A Slayer?' Faith spat the question, equally disbelievingly. 'You're too old.'

Rebecca nodded calmly, confident, once again that she was in control of the situation. 'Admittedly I was a bit older than usual when I was called but that's not where you're getting confused. Because I'm not one of your Slayer School kids. I've been slayer coming up to 3 years now.'

'What the Hell does that mean?' Angel asked.

Buffy answered this time her curious gaze not leaving Rebecca. She looked as if the girl had suddenly turned into some sort of phantom right before her eyes. 'She's my replacement.'

Faith frowned. 'Replace... Oh!'

Wesley stroked his stubbled chin thoughtfully. 'A third Slayer. I did wonder...'

Spike mockingly raised his hand. 'So, let me get this straight. When Buffy...' he unsubtly side-stepped the word died. 'The second time round she was called.'

Rebecca nodded. 'That about sums it up.'

'That doesn't explain the magic.' Angel pointed out still suspicious. 'In my experience Slayers going all Hogwarts is a little unusual.' In response to Buffy's quizzical stare he raised his hands defensively. 'So what? I've read a book written this centaury.'

'I wasn't lying when I said I was sent from the Powers,' Rebecca insisted. 'They gave me the magic on the condition that I only use it for their purposes.'

The gang exchanged a glance before Angel said; 'Can you give us a moment to discuss?' beckoning the others into his office.

Lindsey paused in front of the door to his apartment. The key was hanging in the door but he could quite bring himself to turn it. Turning the key would bring the reality of the past few days crashing down on him. Even now he knew that he hadn't quite come to terms with the whole death issue, ever since Angel had brought him back he had been feeling... numb. Like he was half asleep, constantly drifting in and out of consciousness. We he opened the door and stepped into the empty apartment, the empty apartment with all the familiar furniture it would hit him and it would hurt.

He turned the key and stepped over the threshold.

The coiffured head turned at the sound of him entering and placing the glass of his scotch on a coaster she stood to greet him. 'Good God, Lindsey!' Lilah Morgan simpered. 'You look terrible.'

'Lilah,' Lindsey groaned. 'I heard you were dead.'

Lilah smiled grimly as she played with the turtle neck Lindsey knew covered a hideous scar. 'Like a little thing like death ever stopped either of us. So tell me what was it like?'

'Death? Pain, agony, nothing called a good trouser press. What's with the morbid fascination?'

She shrugged flashing him the wickedly, familiar smile. 'What can I say? I've always been sick. Scotch?'

'Okay, Lilah can we just cut the crap and get to what you actually want with me?'

'Oh, come one Lindsey, what's a few pleasantries between friends?' Lindsey shot her a disdainful look and she sank back into her seat. 'It's not me that wants you. I'd be more than happy if I never saw your treacherous, back stabbing face again but the boss' have plans…'

'What kind of plan?' Lindsey wasn't sure he was interested with anything Wolfram and Hart had to offer him.

'Revenge.' Lilah sank back into the sofa hitching her short skirt to ensure that when she crossed her leg sensuously over the other the top of her bare thigh was exposed to his gaze. As if that would win him over. 'The Senior Partners didn't take to kindly to their trusted representatives on earth being killed off in such a callous fashion.'

'So you want me to what? Kill, Angel 'cause I'm completely fine with that.'

'I can imagine that,' Lilah drawled as she downed her glass of scotch. 'But that is not, unfortunately the plan. Like a very wise and anonymous man once said why go for the kill when you can go for the pain?'

'Pain?'

Lilah rolled her eyes in despair. 'Oh God, Lindsey were you always this slow? We're going to kill all of the Powers that Be little band of Champions and we're going to kill Angel last of all. It's wonderfully simple, don't you think? And kind of restores the balance of things don't you think? Something the Powers have always been so concerned with.'

'Does that include Wesley?'

He couldn't help but bite back a grin when he saw her mantle of composure slip ever so slightly. 'What?'

'Ah, isn't that just cute.'

'Cute?' Lilah spat, disgusted as she tried to grapple for control once again. 'Cute is not a word most people use to describe me unless, that is, they are referring to my frankly fabulous Jimmy Choos.'

'When it comes to it you're just like every other woman on the planet. They can't help falling in love. Even stone cold bitches like you.'

Lilah shook off the truth of the statement with indignation. 'Well, Lindsey I find that horribly sexist and you know the stand the Senior Partners take of sexism in the work place.'

'We're not in the work place.'

'Oh we're always in the work place from the day we signed that contract 'til the day we die or in our case beyond that.'

Lindsey sighed. He remembered the day he had started at Wolfram and Hart. It had been the best day of his life, the day he finally made something of himself. Now he was wishing that he had never met Holland Manners that he had stayed on the farm back in Texas, a poor man with no idea about the real world. No, he retracted; there was nothing worse than that.

Lindsey train of thought was cut off, abruptly by the trilling of Lilah's cell. She glanced down at before looking back at him expectantly. 'So is that a yes?'

Lindsey turned away to pour himself a glass of scotch. 'I'll think about it.'

'We'll be in touch,' He could imagine her smiling her smiling triumphantly behind him as she gathered her purse and left the room. 'Oh and Lindsey, it's good to have you back.'

They had been huddled in Angel's office for what seemed like a long time. It made her feel awkward and if there was one thing Rebecca hated it was feeling out of her depth. She liked to be the one in control, calling the shots, it made her feel safer.

Illyria had been watching her all this time. No, not watching, staring, blankly fixing her with her extraordinary coloured eyes. Illyria was like something Rebecca had never encountered before. There were moments, like when they had gone shopping when she seemed inexplicably human and approachable but now looking at her frozen for almost ten minutes she seemed so incredibly alien, the little girl from Texas might not have existed.

'Why do you stick with them?' Rebecca asked in an attempt at conversation. 'Aren't you supposed to some sort of evil Hell Goddess? What made you join Angel and the Soul Brigade?'

'I'm more than some Goddess,' Illyria answered, speaking for the first time in minutes. 'I am Old One. More ancient and powerful than your imagination could comprehend. You are a mere bug to me, an insect to be squashed, who are you to question my actions or my motives? I stay with the half breed because I wish it, no other reason.'

Rebecca was thankful when the door to the office swung open at that moment sparing her from more time alone with the bug squashing blueberry.

Buffy was the first to speak. Rebecca expected it, wherever she was, even out of her usual Scooby populated habitat she commanded respect and power. 'Okay, we believe you but we think it'd be best if you came back to England with us. We've got the Watcher's Council headquarters there and…'

'No way.'

The answer was simple and blunt causing Buffy to open her eyes in wide shock. Robin answered for her. 'Rebecca, Gils will want to know about your existence.'

'Fine, you tell him,' Rebecca replied. 'But I'm not jumping on a plan when I have a job to here.'

'But we've got questions to ask you,' Buffy said. 'Like how did you even know you were a Slayer? Did you have a Watcher?'

Rebecca bit her lip, a sign of awkwardness. 'Yeah, and he's dead so can we not talk about this.'

'You can't just leave it at that.'

Rebecca stood up now, obviously angry at their unremitting questions. 'Yes, I can.'

They watched as she made a dash towards the door. Only Angel went to stop her. Grabbing her, forcefully by the arm he whispered just loud enough for Rebecca to hear just quiet enough to avoid being overheard by the others, 'They may trust you but I don't. So, you step one foot out of line I will kill you. Got it?'

Rebecca answered by tugging her arm out of his vice-like gripping and charging out the door.

As soon as she heard the door slam petulantly behind her Rebecca felt the self-righteous out-rage slip from her face only to be quickly replaced by a wickedly satisfied grin. That had been too easy.

Slipping through the courtyard and into the busy street beyond she took out her cell phone and dialled a number she knew by heart.

The recipient answered at the first ring, responding with a crisp, 'Go.'

'It's all good. They believed me.'

'Of course they did. It is my plan, after all. And if you hadn't of screwed things up in the first place you wouldn't have needed to convince Angel and his little bad of boy scouts in the first place and we'd still have our ace firmly tucked up out metaphorical sleeve.'

Rebecca sighed. Just when things we're going so well she has to be reminded that she was working with an egotistical bitch. 'How'd it go with Lindsey?' She satisfied herself with asking.

'I know how to push Lindsey's buttons. In a non-sexual way. Yet.' The voice at the end of the line was cool and seductive.

'So if we've got him on side can you please explain why we can't at least let him know what's going on?'

'Becky, honey,' her boss drawled insincerely. 'You don't know what's going on. Even I don't have the full story. So, if you think a treacherous, little surrender monkey like Lindsey McDonald is going to be given the smallest modicum of information then you are seriously mistaken.'

'Okay, okay. I get it you have some Lindsey issues,' Rebecca backtracked fast.

'Not me. I'm fine with him. Well, as fine as I am with people in general. It's the higher powers that have the issues.' Rebecca heard a long breath being drawn. 'Let me tell you something about Lindsey. He has this nasty and inconvenient habit of switching sides whenever things get tough. I can't trust him and neither can the Senior Partners. So in answer to your question, no, you cannot tell him anything, got it.'

'Whatever, Lilah. I get it...'


End file.
